Posted by:
blueorchid
(
)
Date: November 24, 2015 02:22PM
The comments from those who got "the letter" on this board are so full of adjectives like exciting, freeing, thrilling, and cleansing. Toasts are offered and virtual confetti thrown.
Got my letterlast week--didn't feel that. I felt a deeply profound feeling of the bittersweet. I was shocked and dismayed at myself that I was not catapulted into the stratosphere to land on planet "Overjoyed" in the star system "Elation" a billion light years from Kolob, to join Saucie, and Seekyr and Petra and nolomo and the others in a happy dance and a toast.
There is no one more disgusted with the Mormon church than me. So what could explain? This really bothered me--immensely.
The thing is, I was born to the most TBM family in the most TBM county in the state. Everyone and everything were Mormon. And unlike my later experiences on the Mission and BYU, the "all Mormon all the time" experience of my youth was mostly good, often to be treasured.
I grew up in an old pioneer farming community where people just showed up to help you build your house or barn, not because they were told to by the bishop, just because that is what you did. Someone shoveled your walks and you never knew who. Food brought to those who needed it was the idea of the person bringing it. Once in while the Relief Society organized it, but mostly it was just everyone helping everyone. When I went to my Dad's funeral a few years ago I still saw the natural kindness and reciprocity in the eyes of those who were glad to see me again after forty years.
When you went to the Rodeo or County Fair you knew everyone and those events were as important as church on Sunday. Camping trips where the whole town went and even stayed at the lake on Sunday with a quick service. My Dad the Bishop giving my great uncle a TR even though he drank coffee. My ancestors had all been so poor as pioneers that coffee was often all they had to eat some days. They looked at the WoW for what it really was--just some advice.
Kids who got in trouble were helped not shamed. No one worried about who wasn't coming to church. The jack-mo's were accepted and just part of the fabric of the community. You still laughed and talked with them at the grocery store or the bowling alley.
It wasn't perfect. I'm probably glossing over things and remembering the best of times. We were all building bomb shelters with food storage. I was still bullied for being obviously "the other" though I never admitted it. But one of the older neighborhood kids who was the star football player went to my dad and said, "They are really bullying blue, mind if I take care of it?" I only found that out a short time ago. Always wondered why things got a little better.
I struggled because of the church's teachings. But the Mormons of that pocket that I grew up in were not the Mormons I knew later or the ones I read about on this board now. They weren't shunning or leaving each other over the church or freaking out about a cup of coffee.
So, I was a little sad that this is the way it all turned out. Bittersweet. Still necessary though.
But part of me feels like I turned my back on the uncle who took me to get an owl out of a trap on full moon in the snow. I feel like I am turning my back on Aunt Clara and her famous coconut pie and the farmer who didn't press charges when I did something I shouldn't have and he let me work it off instead. (He had eight boys--he knew we were all idiots at that age.)
So I still will join you all in a toast and a "yahoo!" but it feels like I'm always on the wrong page and wondering if anyone else ever felt this. Passages bring reflections of the past I guess. I still like the future as it is laid out now.