Green Oasis

[The following is an email message to the Curriculum Development department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in response to their request for comments and suggestions on the new Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith manual.]

Greetings,

I am grateful for this opportunity to offer my feedback on the
Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith. I hope that
what I say will be helpful to you.

It seems, from what I’ve read, that this manual follows a pattern
established in the other lesson manuals. The manual portrays Joseph
Smith as monogamous, mentioning only his marriage to Emma Hale. This
one example represents in my mind a general pattern in materials
published by the church: presenting only a selection of the available
historical facts. I imagine that this is to avoid presenting
information that will damage the fragile faith of new members and
those who waver, those who “cannot bear meat now, but milk they must
receive” (D&C 19:22). I had once accepted this rationale with the
expectation that the meat of LDS history was available in official
church materials to those who sought it.

Having graduated from the church’s seminary and institute programs, I
believed that I knew the important facts of LDS history because I had
exhausted official church materials. All the same, I felt that I
should be more familiar with the details of church history, so I set
out to study church history with greater focus. Little by little, I
began to realize that certain materials from the church’s history that
could be seen as unflattering or doctrinally unorthodox were missing
from all official publications. I felt disappointed and a little
ashamed to learn that I was unaware of these facts because I needed to
trust that the church was providing me with all important information.
I also wanted to believe that my faith was founded on good
information. This feeling of disillusionment led ultimately to my
choice to renounce my faith.

I wonder if the leading councils of the church have hoped that the
general membership could avoid coming across bits of troublesome
history. I believe that the increased worldwide attention on the
church and wider availability of information on the internet makes any
such hope unfounded.

I have always valued the pursuit of and loyalty to the truth. I
treasure this as a legacy of my Mormon pioneer forebears. I want my
family who choose to actively participate in the church to have all
the truth. I worry that if I try to present the historical truth to
them that they will either perceive it as an attack or believe that I
am lying because their church tells a different story. I hope instead
that they can come to rely on their church to provide that history
openly and honestly, even when it isn’t flattering to the church’s
public image or doesn’t support its current doctrinal stance. I hope
the church can find a way to openly address the uncomfortable parts of
its past.

I ask that you consider making more of the troublesome historical
facts available through official church publications. Perhaps you feel
that the Melchizedek Priesthood/Relief Society manuals are not the
appropriate place to present troublesome history, but please find a
place somewhere in your curriculum. If you are already considering or
implementing this, please consider this message a voice of
encouragement.

Thank you for asking for comments and for taking the time to read my
message.

I walked down the street with my nephew. I was maybe fourteen. The complexities of large Mormon families meant that my nephew was only five years younger than I. When we got to the end of the street, two guys about my age rode up on their bikes and blocked our path.

“Where do you think you’re going?” demanded the one directly in my path.

The unexpectedness of this ambush caused me to do something that would shock anyone who knew me then. I was what you might call a nice, meek guy apparently destined to inherit the Earth.

I looked him dead in the eyes. “Kiss my ass.”

The effect of my verbal sucker punch surprised me. The would-be bullies stumbled over themselves to get out of our way. My nephew and I walked on without giving them another glance.

My nephew looked at me with what I imagined was a mixture of shock and admiration. Frankly, I didn’t know that I could do that. My unaccustomed power impressed me.

Flashforward to today. Here I am, the brunt of a cosmic joke. I will live a short life and die. Everything I care about will suffer a similar fate. The absurdity of human life threatens to overwhelm me. What is the point? Why do I even try? Where do I think I’m going? The only rational response to the absurdity of my own meaningless life is to give up and die.

I stare nihilism down. “Fuck off.”

My life is ultimately absurd. But I don’t care. I’m the brunt of a cosmic joke, I refuse to be backed down from continuing on. I will live and love. I will revel in the fragile vulnerability of human life. I will be irrationally optimistic. I will embrace the absurdity.

Maybe fate will have its ultimate punchline and mock my hopes, but I’ll laugh along too, as long as the day lasts.

A prescient Charlie Chaplin on the hope for a better world. (via Truthdig)

We could use a few more people like Fred Rogers:

Maybe it sounds hokey, but Mr. Rogers really did make me feel like I was his friend.

I always had to translate my little brother and sister’s words for my parents. Growing up with them, I learned their language much better than Mom and Dad. Their tongues which were too large for their mouthes and their mental retardation prevented them from speaking as well as other children their age. My name was “Duhn’thin” for years. My brother or sister would say something and a blank look would cover my parents’ faces. I’d chime in with what they had said, and life would go on.

Their language was unintelligible to outsiders. I learned this when some neighborhood kids mimicked what they heard my sister say. “Duh, duh, duh,” they taunted her. I loved her and it hurt to see her mocked, but I didn’t want to be dumb by association. I stood by and left my sister undefended.

Years later in high school, I had a chance to redeem myself. I stood outside the locker room when one of the short school buses pulled up. I was looking somewhere else when I heard one of the guys yell “Dog! Ugly!” I turned around to see that my sister was the target of this attack. She attended the same school as I did; she had been mainstreamed as they called it. Redemption would have to wait for another day. The situation stunned me into inaction. I was too ashamed of my sister to stand up and defend her.

To this day, when I hear people say offhandedly “that’s retarded” it feels like an attack on my brother and sister, but I don’t say anything. How do I explain without seeming too thin-skinned?

Even though I loved my brother and sister, I often wished that they weren’t retarded. I wished that they could have been normal. Mormonism holds out that hope. It teaches that mentally retarded children were especially valiant champions in God’s cause during our existence before we were born. As perfect innocents, they are assured of their salvation and exaltation in God’s Kingdom when they die.

As a corollary, I would someday meet my brother and sister without the false burden of mental retardation. I have daydreamed all my life about the day that I would meet them and be able to have a normal conversation. I imagined how they would look: normal at last. They wouldn’t make people feel uncomfortable anymore. They wouldn’t embarrass me anymore. I would be proud to be their brother.

Maybe you can understand why it is heartbreaking for me to give up that hope. I now realize that there is no immaculate soul hidden inside my siblings, untainted by retardation. When they die, no sparkling gem will ascend to heaven. The retardation isn’t the illusion. My little brother and sister are retarded.

Instead of loving my brother and sister as they truly are, I have been hoping to meet someone who doesn’t exist. I have been ashamed of their true selves. I will never be able to talk to them, except in our shared language.