A Blast from the Past

I was recently reminded of a home teaching experience I had about ten years ago.  I'm not sure what made me think of it, but once I had, I became fixated on trying to recall the details.  While I struggled to pull even the tiniest strand of relevant information from my memory, I remembered that, while I was at BYU and maintaining a personal blog to keep in touch with my friends back home, I'd written about that memory.

So I dug through the annals of my hard drive and found a copy of that blog post.  Reading through it gave me a little insight (I think) into why I believed in the church and why it took me so long to leave it.  So here's my old blog post from 2006 about something that happened around 2003.  I've edited it only to remove the exposition that my non-member friends needed.  And I changed the word "churhc."  I can't know for sure because it was so long ago, but I'm pretty certain that I meant "church."

Something in church today sparked an interesting memory. One that I realized I need to write down before I forget any more of it. And although it is religious in nature, I think its an interesting anecdote anyway. It was honestly one of the worst--but most important--experiences of my life.

I'm not sure how long ago it was. I think this happened near the beginning of senior year, or possibly near the end of junior year. Or even the summer in between. But the point is it wasn't too long ago, and I was old enough to have my own beliefs and opinions and everything. I was legitimately my own person.
Which is an interesting way to start the story. Because, having been born into a very religious family, I often wondered if I actually believed what I'd been taught all my life, or I just kind of accepted it because I'd never really been presented with any alternate scenarios. But, having no reason to doubt, I did all--most--of the things I was supposed to do, because as far as I knew, the church was true. 

As many other young men my age, I was assigned to home teach with my father as a companion. My father is the Stake President for the [Oh yeah, this is the other thing I edited] Stake, so usually, because my dad was "a busy man" due to his calling, we were assigned to..."easy" families. These were families that were very strong in their faith, very happy and reasonably successful. So we hardly ever had to help them with anything. Which probably did make it easier on my dad. 

But then, we got a new assignment somewhere at the beginning of the vague time frame I sketched out earlier. It was a single, divorced woman who had been coming to church for many many years but had recently stopped showing up. Although this was a "difficult" person to home teach, my father and I were given this assignment because she was a friend of my parents. 

So my dad called her and made an appointment for our first monthly visit, although it seemed to take some serious coaxing to get her to agree to it. And we drove to her house on the scheduled night and knocked on her door. Like we were supposed to. Like we always had. No difference. 

She answered the door, and made it clear that she'd let us in to give our speech and nothing more. So we sat down in her living room and my dad tried to start a conversation. After a few minutes he expressed concern that she hadn't been to church lately. And then she gave us a speech that she had probably been planning to use on somebody for quite some time. 

She told my father to his face that he was only interested in getting a check mark next to her name for that month's home teaching. She called him a fake. She said he was just someone who wanted to look good but didn't care about anything or anyone beyond what was needed to further his image. She went on to say that the church was full of these people, that it was all a sham, that she didn't believe it anymore and she couldn't respect anyone who did. 

I watched the pain on my father's face as he listened to her. He tried to convince her that he was her friend, that he did care about her, that he did want to help, that she didn't really mean all the terrible things she was saying about the church and its members. But the more he said, the more irate she got, and the more his eyes welled with tears. I was watching quietly with horror. I watched as this woman tore down everything I had ever admired about my father. I couldn't believe what was happening. 

Still trying, my father mentioned how much this woman loved the temples. He reminded her how much she enjoyed being there, how much she would look forward to going, and how often she talked of the temple with reverence. She didn't respond. She got up from her couch, walked over to a desk, and retrieved a small card, and gave it to my dad. 

"Here," she said. "You can keep it. I don't want to see it again." It was her temple recommend. 

Then she asked us to leave so she could get back to what she was doing. My dad tried to suggest that we close with a prayer. Her response: "Sure, pray away, I don't care what you do." 

But it's the custom for the person being home taught to pick someone to give the prayer. I knew she'd pick me. She didn't want to hear anything else from my dad. And I was a wreck, spiritually and emotionally. 

But it still felt better to pray. I was sniffling and tearing up through the whole thing, and I found it difficult to pray in a way that wouldn't make the situation worse. But even though I knew she was just sitting there on the couch not participating, just watching us as we prayed, I wanted to pray anyway. I was under the gaze of someone who had no respect for what I was about to do, but I wanted to do it anyway. 

So I did. And it was hard. But I did it. And then we left. And no matter how hard I tried, I was crying before we left. It was such a miserable experience seeing such animosity toward what I'd always been taught was true. But I found a great amount of relief from the fact that I found myself vehemently disagreeing with what she said. Maybe it's because my dad was such a focal point of her attack, but I knew what she said wasn't true. What my dad taught me growing up was. And I could tell that I knew that without anyone else's help. I knew it for myself. 

And it had a similar effect on the way I saw my dad. I know he's not perfect. But I know he's not some self-aggrandizing egotist. I saw his face that night. He wasn't crying because she'd seen through his facade. He wasn't crying because she was making fun of him. There was genuine, sincere concern on his face. And pain. I could tell that he was crying because someone he cared about was rejecting the truth. Because someone he cared about was throwing away something that could make her happy. And as I saw her violent anger and his quiet agony, I knew that my dad is a good man. And nothing she said could change it. It made that truth stronger in my mind as I mentally compared her words to what I 'd seen my father do all my life. And I knew she was wrong. 

It was an acutely excruciating evening. But I think I wouldn't trade that experience for ten years of home teaching an "easy" family. Because it's nice to know that I know. 

A few months later, I was looking for a stapler so that I could finish a paper I'd written for school. My mom suggested I try my dad's office. So I went into the basement to his office and started searching for a stapler. I opened the top drawer of his desk. I didn't find the stapler in there. Instead, neatly placed in an easily accessible corner, I saw this woman's temple recommend. 

My dad hadn't given up on her. That kind of dedication can't come from the desire for a check mark and the praise of others. He really did care about her.
And the church really is true. 

Sorry if that was preachy. Okay, yeah, it definitely was. But it's important to me to remember this. And important that other people know that I wasn't just born Mormon. I do believe this. On purpose. And I take it seriously.

Boy, ex-Mormons (or soon-to-be-ex-Mormons) sure are scary to Born-In-the-Covenant Mormons.  But I think the important thing here is that, even though I somehow didn't realize it, I wasn't bearing my testimony about the church.  I was bearing my testimony about my dad.

It's true that my dad is a good guy.  He took his church responsibilities seriously without coming off as self-righteous.  As stake president, he genuinely cared for the members in his stewardship and he really wanted to do the right thing.  And I was opposed to this lady's assault on his character.  I know she said some stuff about the church--a lot of stuff about the church--that night, but I can't remember what it was.  What really bothered me and what really stuck with me was what she had to say about my dad.

I think part of growing up (at least for most people) is coming to the understanding that your parents aren't perfect.  I know this is not a new idea and I might have inadvertently plagiarized somebody by saying it.  But I think because my dad held some important leadership positions in the church when I was a kid he became a physical personification of the church.  I may have, somewhere in my subconscious, linked Mormonism with my dad so closely that they were almost the same thing to me.  And maybe once I grew up and began to let go of some of my less-justified admiration of my dad it became easier for me to let go of my completely unjustified  belief in the doctrines of the church.

I mean, I took half a semester of a psych class once, so I'm no expert.  But I think the theory has a decent amount of substance to it.

I only wish I could go back in time and whisper to my sixteen-year-old self silently sobbing on that spiteful sister's sofa:  hey, ignore the crap about your dad--she's making some valid points here.

My Mormon-Sense is Tingling

Wow, it's been almost a month since my last post.  I've fallen off the grid a bit, I suppose.

And speaking of falling off the grid, I've been out of the church long enough that I no longer feel informed about the membership in my area.  Since I went inactive, ward boundaries have changed, families have moved away, other families have moved in, and I no longer have the impression that I personally know the majority of local church members.

However, I have a semi-public job.  I manage a fast food restaurant and interact with hundreds of local customers on a daily basis.  I occasionally have customers with whom I once attended church.  I had a short chat once with a customer whose family was perpetually bouncing back and forth between activity and inactivity (although it appears that this guy has made the transition into full inactivity).  But now that I've been out almost five years, I'm well aware that there may be members I don't personally know hiding among the seemingly innocent populace.

A few mornings ago, I was having an unusually dull lunch rush.  A drive-thru order came through on my headset.  My shift supervisor took the nice lady's order, and I immediately noticed a distinctive Utahn accent.  And my Mormon-Sense began tingling.

I paid close attention to her to see if I could find any more clues to confirm that she was, in fact, a Mormon.  She ordered multiple children's meals.  This was not, of course, a dead giveaway, but it worked with my theory.  Mormons tend to have large families with the children not spaced very far apart in age.  Not only was her accent Utahn, but her demeanor was weirdly polite in a way that jived with Mormon tendencies toward unnervingly genuine-sounding interactions.  She paid with a credit card, and when the receipt came out of my printer, I indulged myself a glance at the name on the card.  She had a strong Scandinavian surname, one that, while relatively common to begin with, is particularly common within the church.  I think there were a few kids with this name in my graduating class, but the only people with this name that I'd known personally were LDS (a prominent family in my stake growing up, and a ward member my second year at BYU).

To pique my curiosity further, I made a point to hand her order out the window myself.  She looked positively Mormon.  She was dressed very modestly but with some attempt at fashion--sleeves and layers, but with a weird little beret on her head so as to avoid looking completely bland.  Her hair was blonde, but it didn't look natural to me.  I counted three children in the car (maybe one of them was too young to eat fast food?).  She was pretty, and her mannerisms seemed to imply she was in her mid-to-late twenties, but she appeared to be in her early thirties.  She looked tired, but still smiled and acted chipper.  And when her car pulled away from the window, I checked the back of her car--and, to my satisfaction, I saw a "University of Utah Alumni" license plate frame.

Of course, every last bit of this is circumstantial and extremely subjective.  But unlike the few times this has happened to me before, I had a name.  So I shot my mother a text message asking if she new this lady (without explaining why).  Unfortunately, she said that she didn't.  So I suppose I could be wrong.  What I'm thinking is more likely is that this lady lives in a different ward than my parents.  Since neither of my parents has a stake calling anymore, it's very reasonable to assume that they wouldn't know most of the families that have moved into neighboring wards over the past year or two.

Now what I want to happen is for the missionaries to walk into my dining room some afternoon.  I think I'd give them a free meal out of pity if I wasn't sure that such an action would send them the wrong message.

Representation Among the Leadership

Out of morbid curiosity, I spent some time poking around the church's website, looking through the little bios they have on the general authorities.  I'd been thinking again about how the church was run by old white men, and I wondered how many of these old white men were also from Utah.  I started counting, and counting turned into full-blown research, and before I knew it, I'd embarked on a project whose scope was spiraling wildly out control.

But eventually, I came up with this:

Mormon Info Graphics is better at this stuff

This crudely-created Microsoft Paint graphic depicts the general authorities of the church (in descending order of seniority), color-coded by birthplace.  I managed to confirm my suspicion that there is, mathematically speaking, a buttload of general authorities from Utah and its surrounding areas.  And the Big 15 almost entirely consists of Americans (especially Utahns), with the sole exception of Dieter F. Uchtdorf.  

So then I poked around on the Mormon Newsroom to get some membership statistics.  I was curious about how well the different parts of the world were reflected among the church leadership.  Here's what I found:

So almost thirty-five percent of the church's general authorities hail from a state which only contains thirteen percent of the worldwide membership.  That seems pretty skewed to me.  What's more interesting, however, is that the three regions of the world that are over-represented (Utah, its bordering states and Europe) are all regions that have predominantly caucasian inhabitants.  South America, for example, provides the church with almost a quarter of its total membership yet merits only eleven percent of its leadership.  Asia and Africa also have a lower share of the leadership than of the membership.  

It's weird that a church that is criticized for its racism over-represents Europe and under-represents Africa.  You'd think they'd want to do the exact opposite to support the claim that the church is not racist (especially since only one of the two authorities born in Africa is even black).  It's also strange that worthy Priesthood holders seem to be found in such higher concentration near the church headquarters than anywhere else in the world.  

I suppose, to be fair from a statistical standpoint, some of these parts of the world aren't really under-represented.  Africa's variance between membership share and leadership share is less than half a percent--but that translates to less than one general authority.  If one more African general authority were to be called, the continent would suddenly be over-represented.  When it's close enough to come down to only one individual, it's not really fair to say that Africa doesn't have its share.  But you'd still think the church, which is so focused on outward appearances, would want to appoint a few more leaders of less-white backgrounds to shed its image of racism.  

Joseph Sitati, the lone black general authority, is not the first.  The first was Helvecio Martins, who was called in 1990 and released in 1995--fourteen years before Sitati was called.  It's like the church really isn't even trying to appear racially unbiased.  Or, based on the other information, geographically unbiased.  There's clearly a gender bias, since a full hundred percent of the general authorities are, well, male. Considering only two of the general authorities are under the age of fifty (because nobody's ever heard of a religious leader under the age of forty who ever amounted to anything), there's a pretty obvious age bias. And if I had more information at my fingertips, I might be able to demonstrate that the church is also economically biased.  

After judging prospective leaders based on where they live, what sex they are, what race they are, what age they are and how rich they are, what's left to judge?  Has anybody done a statistical analysis on the apostles' shoe sizes?  Because that seems about as relevant.

Considering the church claims to be the same one established by a penniless Jew from the middle east who died before he hit forty and restored by a poor farm boy from the other side of the globe who also died before he hit forty, you'd think they'd be less selective when they call general authorities.  I guess I don't have a good historical example to counter the sexism thing, but the point is that the church is not only an oligarchy of mostly rich old white Utah men, but it's also separated itself from its own examples of leadership.

And, as a closing thought, I'd like to point out that, due to some mathematical discrepancies I found in the membership statistics provided by the Mormon Newsroom, I can only assume that the church has a burgeoning colony of eighteen thousand five hundred forty-three believers in Antarctica.

No Blood In Heaven

Out of nowhere, I suddenly remembered one of the weirdest doctrines I ever heard taught from the pulpit by a semi-reputable authority figure--that our bodies would not have blood in them in the spirit world.  Or in heaven.

I heard this as a teenager from an eccentric but well-respected high council speaker in sacrament meeting.  That night, at dinner, my family was discussing sacrament meeting.  Since my dad was the stake president, he'd attended a different ward that day and my mother and I were filling him in on our church experience.  My mom mentioned that Brother Buford's talk had some pretty heavy stuff in it.  Thinking that she was being critical of him, I agreed.  "Yeah, some of it was pretty out there," I said.  "Like that whole no-blood-in-heaven thing."  I shook my head in slight disgust that someone would teach such absurd things over the pulpit.

To my astonishment, my mom informed me that Brother Buford was probably right.  He wasn't just making stuff up and there was actually something to his claim.  That was one of the first times I can remember thinking my parents were flat-out wrong on a religious issue.  I didn't take it as a blow to my testimony, though--I just figured a couple members (including my parents, who I realized weren't perfect) got some stupid ideas in their heads.  But despite my mother's assurance that Brother Buford wasn't making stuff up, I disregarded that particular piece of information as completely false.

Upon remembering this experience, I got curious.  And I consulted Google.

Turns out, Brother Buford may not have been totally off-base in teaching us that we'd have no blood in heaven.  The prophet Joseph Fielding Smith explained:

After the resurrection from the dead our bodies will be spiritual bodies, but they will be bodies that are tangible, bodies that have been purified, but they will nevertheless be bodies of flesh and bones, but they will not be blood bodies, they will no longer be quickened by blood but quickened by the spirit which is eternal and they shall become immortal and shall never die.

You know he's said something totally off-the-wall when the biggest problem with that statement is not the fact that it's an egregious run-on sentence. Brother Buford was teaching church-approved doctrine and he couldn't get it from a higher source on the food chain--unless, I suppose, it was a more recent source.  Still, he was apparently teaching legitimate "truth" to the congregation.  There is, indeed, no blood in Mormon heaven.

The weird thing about this, of course, is that in the celestial kingdom, we're supposed to be having lots of celestial sex to create spirit children.  And that brings to mind this little anti-Twilight gem:

This has a beautiful symmetry to it because Twilight was written by a Mormon...

If you have no blood in your veins and you can't get it up, how can you be expected to eternally procreate?  I couldn't help but wonder how faithful members who are into these weirder, more nebulous doctrines could reconcile this teaching with reality.

And this is what I found:  A four-page thread on the LDS.net forums dedicated to this exact principle.  My two favorite theories proposed by the posters there were the idea that "pure spirit" will flow through our veins in the afterlife and the last idea proposed--that after we're resurrected we'll just have our blood replaced with water (which could have magical properties currently unknown to science).

Yes, I'm mocking these people, and yes, this might be particularly mean-spirited.  But I just wish that people (including myself, years before I left the church) would apply Occam's Razor a little more often.  When you have to bend over backwards and apply bizarre metaphysical terminology or repeatedly invoke the claim that there's too much we don't know just to make your beliefs fit into the nice, neat box you've been struggling to keep them in, maybe you should be looking for a simpler explanation.

Maybe we don't have pure spirit in our veins in our post-resurrection bodies.  Maybe Joseph Fielding Smith was just talking out his ass.  

On a final note, it was encouraging to see that there were at least two posters in that thread that have since been banned.  I noticed one in particular was less accepting of Fielding's word as gospel than the others were.  Perhaps those two posters apostatized and attempted to share their findings with the forum before getting booted?  

Snow and Moksha, wherever you are, I hope you're out.

Choose the Right...Reaction

While I was at work a few months ago, Janet, one of my coworkers received a call from her mother-in-law.  Her mother-in-law was freaking out because she'd just found her middle-aged son dead.  Janet instantly became a wreck and I didn't really know what to do about it.

Janet used to complain about her brother-in-law a lot.  Everything from his finances to his personal hygiene was scrutinized and criticized.  She didn't like him but she put up with him because he was family.  When she received the call, Janet went from happy-go-lucky to bawling-her-eyes-out in a matter of seconds.  Suddenly she was frazzled and inarticulate.  She was both asking me for permission to leave work and telling me she was leaving, or maybe she was switching back and forth.  She'd apologize for having to leave, but then she'd ask if I would let her.  She forgot her purse and then came back a second time for her phone.  She was suddenly so different from her usual self.  It was weird.

For some reason, I was reflecting on that memory today and I wondered how much of my reaction was a result of patterns of behavior that were ingrained in me because of--wait for it--my Mormon upbringing.

  

Yeah, it always comes back to that.