I liked being mormon in Boston. Maybe it's because as long as you had a pulse, you were accepted.
And isn't that all any of us really want, to be accepted? No one wants to feel like they are being inspected with one of those awful magnifying mirrors that people use for spotting black heads or tiny broken veins on their nose.
Black, white, red, gray, liberal, conservative, sane, mental, legal resident, illegal resident, rich, poor, happy, brooding, old, young, married, single, divorced, living with partner, english speaking, non-english speaking...people were accepted. We had stuff to do. We didn't have time to sit around poking our nose in to one another's business.
So, someone would get up at Fast and Testimony meeting and bring up things like polygamy, or Jehovah's Witnesses...who cares? So, the missionaries would bring investigators to the church building who looked like they'd just come from a strip club...who cares? So the Spanish congregation would be frying up empanadas after their meetings making the whole building drool with envy over their spread...who cares?
We had each other. I knew that some of the members of our ward and stake did not believe in the temple ceremony. Some prayed to a heavenly mother. Some didn't pray at all. Some prayed to know what color of shirt to wear that morning. Some seemed to have it all figured out. Others didn't seem to know which way was up. But as long as we were all trying, all kind, all interested in each other as brothers and sisters it didn't matter if you were a stock broker, or a cab driver or a rocket scientist, you were accepted.
If you were a woman you could have five kids under the age of five, or have zero kids at the age of 45, and it didn't matter. You could wear a dress to church, or jeans to church and it didn't matter. You could sing from the pulpit how much you loved the church, or discuss it's shortcomings with it's human population and leaders, and it didn't matter. I guess I wonder, why any of this should matter. And would it matter to the savior if he was on the earth today? He'd be the bearded, poor one, wearing a dress and flip flops to church. I hope that when he does return, it's to one of the Boston wards, because here in Utah, he might be asked to cut his hair, put on a suit, and shave his beard before he'd be allowed to pass the sacrament.
So when I see posts like this one I drink it up. Someone who seems to feel the same way that I do about shorts to the knees, no green tea, hair above the ears, no second earrings, white button down shirts, and all other manner of blackheads and broken veins.
http://kiwimormon.com/2012/03/16/keeping-mormonism-really-nice-for-all/
1 comment:
This article by Eugene England speaks to your frustration.
http://www.eugeneengland.org/why-the-church-is-as-true-as-the-gospel
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