We Thank Thee, O God, With a Hashtag

Our dear leader has shared an important Thanksgiving message.

Out of context, it's a nice message, if a little maudlin.  He thinks we should all be better at expressing gratitude.  I don't disagree with that.  I don't think gratitude is the secret remedy to all societal problems or anything, but I agree that we would all be better off if humanity were a more grateful species.

But this message doesn't exist out of context.  In the context of Mormonism and in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic, it's not a particularly helpful message.  So here are a few pieces of it placed into their proper context.

As a man of science and as a man of faith, the current worldwide pandemic has been of great concern to me.  As a man of science, I appreciate the critical need to prevent the spread of infection.  I also honor the devoted service of healthcare professionals and grieve for the many whose lives have been upended by COVID-19.  As a man of faith, however, I view the current pandemic as only one of many ills that plague our world, including hate, civil unrest, racism, violence, dishonesty, and lack of civility.

He's not wrong.  We have tons of other problems besides the pandemic, but there aren't very many that are so widespread or so immediate.  There are absolutely exceptions.  But mentioning dishonesty and a lack of civility among the many ills that plague our world besides the virus that's infected millions around the globe and killed hundreds of thousands?  That kind of feels like yelling "But when are you going to cut out red meat like your doctor told you to?!" to a drowning man.

..there is no medication or operation that can fix the many spiritual woes and maladies that we face.  There is, however, a remedy.  One that may seem surprising, because it flies in the face of our natural intuitions.  Nevertheless, its effects have been validated by scientists as well as men and women of faith.  I'm referring to the healing power of gratitude.

Okay, again, he's not wrong that gratitude can help, but it's no panacea.  It's also not as counterintuitive as he's suggesting, because he's far from the first person to posit the therapeutic abilities of a little internalized thankfulness.  

And while his idea here will undoubtedly help people feel a bit more upbeat during difficult times, it suffers from the same weakness that defines so much of Mormonsim: it won't work for everyone, and those for whom it doesn't work will feel even worse for it.  Anyone feeling a bit down because of the heavy nature of so many things that have been happening lately may see their moods brighten as they focus on gratitude, but anyone who's legitimately, clinically, medically depressed right now likely will not.  And, of course, those are the people who need the healing power the most.  

It's a pattern in Mormonism—there are pat solutions that work for some and don't work for others, and that leads to a huge disparity in experience.  That can make those people who didn't see the promised results feel even further away from the peace they crave.  This is why so many people wind up torturing themselves.  People wonder what could possibly explain why they didn't receive the testimony they prayed for or why their attraction to the same sex hasn't been magically removed or why they haven't been able to conceive the children they've asked God to provide them.  When the promises coming from the scriptures and the prophets are such simple if-you-do-this-then-that-will-happen without any accounting for the breadth of human experience and behavior, too often our conclusions are that the solutions don't work because of our own shortcomings.

It would be really great to see the Lord's representatives acknowledge more frequently and more directly that their inspired remedies for our tribulations are not universally effective among even the most righteous and the most faithful.  Nelson's video needs one of those quickly read fine print disclaimers from pharmaceutical commercials to explain the efficacy rate and the side effects.

No matter our situation, showing gratitude for our privileges is a fast-acting and long-lasting spiritual prescription.

I assume he's probably just riffing on the whole I'm-a-doctor thing here, but I really wish he wouldn't use the word "prescription."  Not only does that imply an unrealistically high expectation for our troubles to be cured, but it also isn't anything like a prescription at all.

I mean, simply etymologically speaking, it doesn't work.  It doesn't take a linguist to figure out that "prescribe" comes from Latin words for "before" and "write."  As in, you go to your doctor, they figure out what's wrong with you, and they write something out for you before you're able to receive the substance that will help you.  Using gratitude as a self-therapy is, again, not a new concept at all.  And it's not something that requires pre-authorization from a professional.  We're not sitting here waiting for permission to use pharmaceutical-grade gratitude.  Nelson is telling us to use a long-established, widely available over-the-counter medication and he's simultaneously patting himself on the back for writing us a prescription.

But more than that, prescriptions are personalized.  Your doctor writes you prescriptions for things that will treat your specific problems, usually taking into account any other conditions you may have so as not to exacerbate them.  Prescriptions are, by definition, not one size fits all.  Depending on our locations in the world and our personal experiences, we've all been struggling with the myriad trials of 2020 in our own ways.  Nelson is essentially telling a world filled with thousands and thousands of different diseases that if we all take amoxicillin, we'll all feel better.  Thanks, man, but how does that help with my insomnia or my cousin's diabetes or my friend's migraines?

We can all give thanks for the beauties of the earth and the majesty of the heavens that give us an inkling of the vastness of eternity.

The vastness of space gives us an inkling of the vastness of time?  That's not how dimensions work.  Does the width of the Mississippi river also give us an inkling of its depth?  But I'm quibbling.

I invite you, just for the next seven days, to turn social media into your own personal gratitude journal.  Post every day about what you are grateful for, who you are grateful for, and why you are grateful.  At the end of seven days, see if you feel happier and more at peace.  Use the hashtag #GiveThanks.

Great, another Mormon hashtag, just what the world needs right now.

If this were about keeping a gratitude journal and adjusting our own attitudes, there would be no need for social media.  Generally journals are private, not public.  Twitter isn't really a journaling platform.  Hashtags serve no purpose in personal diaries.

This is about projecting a positive image outward so that everyone can see how well Mormons are doing during the current crises.  This is also about projecting a positive image laterally so that Mormons feel pressured to double down on their beliefs and to play the role of the joyous and blessed Mormon because they don't know their friends are similarly pretending to be happier than they really are. And, with pretty much everything Nelson does, it's about garnering adulation for him—and the YouTube video is already flooded with fawning comments about how great his leadership is and how inspired his message is and how much his words have touched people's lives.

You can bet Nelson is giving thanks this holiday season for the hundreds of thousands of people who constantly shower him with positive reinforcement for his delusions of prophethood.

We pray for relief from political strife.  Wilt thou bless us with a healing spirit that unites us, despite our differences.

Relief from political strife?  Do you think he's talking about what's been happening during the last year in Hong Kong, Nigeria, or Azerbaijan, or do you think he's talking about what's happening in his own country?  The fact that he's telling us to be grateful during the week leading up to the US holiday of Thanksgiving makes me think his outlook isn't as global as he wants us to believe.  I mean, he mentions racism here and it was a big issue in General Conference this year too, but this is something that has hardly come up at all in General Conference until this 2020 (oddly not even during the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s) until this generation's prophets took notice because of racial unrest in their own country:

To a certain extent, I get it.  Though I'm sympathetic to what I do know about injustice and war and unrest around the world, I certainly know a lot more about it in my own country and I admittedly care a lot more about it in my own country.  But I'm not pretending to speak for the God of all humanity as the prophet of a worldwide church.  

There were a lot of diverse, multicultural, international faces in the clips interspersed with footage of Nelson in this video.  But that doesn't mean Nelson knows the first thing about those people and what their lives are like.  And it certainly doesn't mean he has their interests at heart.

And this may be obvious, but it bears repeating—Nelson has not acknowledged that the two worldwide fasts he organized earlier this year failed to meaningfully impact the spread of the virus.  He has not offered any remedies for the immediate threats to our health and safety.  Instead, he has only offered some remedies of arguable efficacy for our attitudes as we continue to deal with our problems, ostensibly without any pittance of divine aid.

This Thanksgiving, we thank thee, O God, for a prophet, who leaves us with a few trite words as we continue to struggle on our own in these latter days.

(Seriously, though, I'm very grateful that I no longer feel the need to look to the leaders of Mormonism for guidance, inspiration, advice, or salvation.)