Doubting our long-held views of the world, especially if firm faith positions are part of it, is a high stakes matter. Not only do enter into a new relationship with one’s own whole way of thinking, which is stressful enough, but family dynamics and friendships and our social groups most often also begin to feel different. We’re now different, and we need to reorient in ways that incorporate our new views. But many times family and other loved ones fail to understand what we’re going through. We often fail to understand what we’re going through! It all feels so big, so dramatic. It is hard to manage these changes gracefully.

Is there help? Are there different ways to frame what we and they are going through as we find ourselves shifting from familiar pathways and interpersonal dynamics? Jon Ogden has written a terrific book that just might help. Called When Mormons Doubt: A Way to Save Relationships and Live a Quality Life, it reminds us of deep wisdom we often forget. Invoking the Ancient Greeks and moving us forward in time, Ogden highlights three key values and ways of understanding—Truth (the realm of philosophy), Goodness (ethics—what is moral, how should I act?), and Beauty (aesthetics, experiential knowing, judging between things)—that often become out of balance with each other. In “faith crisis,” truth often leads out (how does what I am leaning match with “Reality” or what I previously held as true?). But in that struggle, we’ll often leave the other ways of knowing and judging behind. How can we avoid that?

In this episode, Jon Ogden is joined by Jeralee Renshaw and Kim Puzey, along with Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon, for a lively discussion of these important areas and how they can inform various aspects of our faith struggles. But mostly it is a conversation that hopefully presents four Latter-day Saints who have come to appreciate all three values and have incorporated them in a balanced way into their own lives and spiritual journeys. Hopefully you’ll find them to make good sense and this episode something that might assist you as you transition into these new ways of seeing the world and being with others.