Community v. Peculiarity
My Mormon Roots are Showing
We’ve all heard the historical references to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as “a peculiar people.” At the time, Mormons were proud of that.
So if we were to marry the 19th century’s version of the LDS Church with today’s, it would be something like this:
“We’re different (better) than you, and our religion is unlike (truer than, better than) any of your pretend religions. We’re brave (misled, a little confused) because we’re reinstating polygamy (‘I Spy with my Little Eye’ — for Men Only, and shh, it’s after you die now, shh… shut-UP, dude). We don’t drink alcohol (excessive sugar is totally fine), use tobacco, (have you seen the stock prices on sugar lately??), drink coffee or tea (but a 64-oz diet Coke® at 8 a.m. and Red Bulls® at noon are A-OK!). Most importantly, we have a living prophet who’s typically wealthy, white, elderly (learned this the hard way after Brigham [PR nightmare] Young), retired, wealthy, white, elderly — we don’t want another Fanny Alger fiasco, do we? — wealthy (oh, did we already say all that?), MALE team player who gives us continuing revelation about important stuff like how many holes you’re allowed to have in your ears (ladies), how long your skirts, shorts, and sleeves must be (ladies) and how your shirts/blouses are cut, sleeved, etc. (ladies, again!) and whether you’re allowed to have asexual intercourse with a tattoo needle and its Satanic sperm (ink), and that last one goes for everyone. Also? We totally know where the Ten Tribes of Israel are! Nee-ner-nee-ner-neeeeee-ner! (We’ll never tell, but let’s just say there’s a planet out there with some ah-hah-mazing deli and, shh, it used to be the Ulf-gay of Exico-may!) Speaking of gay, ew, and just no. That (fighting your sick-o urges)is your challenge. Some of us are born with too many gifts, too little time, but we MUST overcome. Remember, trials are meant to be overcome and accepted or…accepted if you can’t overcome — there it is! Also, Mormons and Jews? Totally the same, except the Jewish people killed our big brother… like, DUH. If you guys hadn’t betrayed him he’d still be here, being awesome… wait, it was a plan, though, right? So how could… wait, if he was the Lamb, then why…ouch, ouch, OUCH, singing a hymn, singing a hymn, hold on…”
A while back, the LDS Church began a PR campaign about how Mormons were no longer peculiar, and in fact, they were great walkers, singers, doing dishes-ers, laughing (lots of laughing-ers), doctors, lawyers, and “My name is Joe and I clean gutters in the fall for my neighbors and I’m a Mormon…”
Maybe it was the sneaky head-feels while riding ski lifts at Alta with people from other places (“Oh, sorry, I just heard y’all had horns on yer heads out here, heh heh heh… uh, so, y’all can’t drink coffee, huh?”) or maybe they got some bad press (cough cough Danites, massacres of various sorts, big, giant, historical fibs cough cough), or maybe technology made it impossible to stay in the “peculiar place” Mormons used to enjoy.
We had the State of Deseret and our own alphabet, our own banks and our own Utopian world where sharing our goods and wives (and our wives’ goods, which became problematic so off ya go, latter-day revelation of the icky variety!) was what made us so peculiar and special. We were sexual libertarians and staunch Democrats until one day, Family Values entered the political/religious conversation and now… well. It’s tough to be a Republican and a Communist at the same time.
Whatever the case, eventually, the PR machine worked. I mean, HECK, look how far Mitt went (of course until he grew a pair and voted to impeach The Mormon’s brand-new poster boy for Family Values, DJT. Huh, everything kinda comes full circle, no?)
Whatever the case, I attended a ward in Holladay, Utah. I was born there and lived in the same house my whole childhood and every 4th of July, all the High Priests would go to the ward house and start cooking breakfast for the whole neighborhood at 5 a.m.
I remember waking up early, because we wanted to get there by 6, when all the food was hot and fresh, and as the tables were slowly being filled.
Okay, here’s a joke only Mormons would get: How many LDS High Priests does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Only one. The trick is finding one who’s not napping. Buh-dum-pah! (Reason #873 why they never asked me to speak in church.)
I looked at people who never came to church back then, trying to find what wasn’t in their eyes (light), but it turned out, they looked just as happy as the people who came to church, and so it felt like a community. People laughed and talked with each other, and the old men (the High Priests) joked and chatted with each person as they served the food in their silly aprons. Former ward members who grew up and left, got married, would sometimes come back with their children and spouses to see all the original, founding members, like my parents and others who have long since passed.
Before it became a multimillion-dollar industry — or is it billion, I don’t know — building ward houses was something the members of that ward volunteered to help with. My parents helped build that ward house. My mom would say, every time we went in it, that she painted the “girls bathroom.” My dad helped install the pews, painted, and whatever else they needed him to do.
Whatever day of the week it was, except if it fell on a Sunday, the 4th of July meant there was a free breakfast for all who lived nearby, all were welcome. We were a community on that one day, and I didn’t know how to articulate it then, but oh, I wanted it to last.
I tried to go back a few years ago, but the “moment,” so to speak and though it lasted my whole childhood and much of my adult life, passed. No one remembered me, my siblings, my mom and dad, whose funerals were at this same church.
That’s probably a good thing, thinking on it.
Truth is, I miss the ‘peculiar’ that went with our community. Back then, it was all right to say “Yeah, we’re different, but we’re also the same. Pass me the syrup? Mmm, good stuff…”
It was okay that Mr. Gomera smoked his cigarettes off to the side of the parking lot, near the fence. It was okay that new people were there with new babies, making the rounds. It was okay that kids lit sparklers and pops in the huge parking lot and people left early to march in the local little league baseball “parade” — the highlight of the festivities. It was okay, because for a moment, we were all in this thing together and there was hope.
As I look back on that time, my insides swell with something my parents (or believing family) would call “the Spirit.” But it isn’t a spirit from god or regret. It’s not even magic. It’s likely procedural memory, but even that’s a kind of magic — isn’t that what we call things that we don’t understand, but that “force-stop” us as we “stand all amazed?”
Because when I smell the scent of outdoor breakfasts on this particular day, I go back, and I smile, I cry a little, and I mourn. I mourn the loss of too many things to contain in one thought, so it coalesces into a lump in my throat, a burning in my bosom, a smile on my face, and yeah, a couple of tears in the old eye-well.
It was a community, my community, and I lost it when I lost my faith. I lost where I belong.
I’d like to think I’m still quite peculiar, though — and my husband, between you and me?
Totally had the horns.
