Priorities

I was going through some old papers, and i discovered notes i took from a stake conference where we were told they’d had their best youth conference turnout ever for a three-day “trek”* event. This was presented as clear evidence that trek is a wonderful thing.**

Me, i just find it worth noting that they probably wouldn’t have gotten as high a turnout for, say, a three-day project helping build a Habitat for Humanity house, and that’s just sad.

* For those of you who have happy enough lives that you’re unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is trek, imagine a bunch of teenagers risking heatstroke as they push two-wheeled wheelbarrows around, and you’ve pretty much got it.

** If the causality seems tenuous, congratulations! You are capable of basic logic.

The memes of my youth

One last thought from my trip to Oregon a few weeks ago:

So, upon finding out we were going to be singing the song “They, the Builders of the Nation”, what with being faced with the refrain “Blessed, honored Pioneer!” while being in Oregon, of all places—well, all i’m trying to say is that i couldn’t have been the only one whose brain kept looping the phrase “You have died of dysentery”.

That’s all.

Apparently David B hates America

I realize that this is borderline heresy, especially in July (when all USAmericans, and especially USAmerican Mormons, are xpected to be nothing but hyperpatriotic),* but can we stop hearing that the United States Constitution is divinely inspired—or at least can we stop saying that over the pulpit?

I mean, even if it is,** there’s no real evidence for that claim in canon,*** and so it shouldn’t be presented as if there were.

(I only hope that we don’t get such jingoism among Mormons in other countries, ’cause it’d just be totally sad if we do.)

* Not only do we get Independence Day on 4 July, but 24 July brings us Pioneer Day, when those of us with no real connection to the Mormon pioneers are expected to get up early for breakfast and salute the flag on their behalf anyway.

** And i would argue it clearly isn’t—i mean, slavery being legal? Women having no say in government? Hello? Anyone willing to admit there might be some uninspired bits in there?

*** The book of Doctrine and Covenants states that God allowed the United States Constitution to be established, and that those who wrote it were raised up for the purpose of establishing it. There really is a big difference between that and saying the document irself is divinely inspired. (See, for example, the previous footnote.)

More than a stonecutter

The story of John R. Moyle is amazing. It’s incredible. It’s inspiring. It’s mind-blowing, in all the positive senses of that word.

And yet as it develops into a mainstream bit of Mormon folklore it runs the risk, i fear, of becoming as bleached of nuance and detail in favor of sappiness and simplicity as the story of the Willie and Martin handcart companies became before it.

Sometimes we do our stories a grave injustice as we tell them.

Again, the gathering is over

Okay, so i completely understand people singing and loving “Come, Come Ye Saints”—it’s not my musical preference (it’s in G major to begin with, never a good choice), but fine, whatever works for you.

But could we please have a rewrite on some of the lyrics? Especially that bit in the third verse, which starts

We’ll find the place which God for us prepared
Far away in the West…

I mean, this isn’t accurate anymore on two counts.

First of all, this is a clear reference to the “gathering” to Utah. However, it hasn’t been the policy of the church to have church members move to Utah for a long, long time—so why make it sound like it’s still in effect in one of our most commonly-sung songs? (I suggest replacing “Far away in the West” with something like “Near at hand, where we stand”.)

Second, isn’t “in the West” a bit relative? I mean, now that i live in Alaska, far away in the west is Moscow, if it’s anywhere. (In fact, when i was growing up in Maryland, i started refusing to sing that line on the principle that the gathering was over, and the land that God had prepared for me was right where i was. On the other hand, of course, during my exile in Utah, i made it a point to sing that line with vigor.)

The ‘gathering’ is over. Repeat, the ‘gathering’ is over.

What’s up with “gathering” songs like “For the Strength of the Hills” being in the hymnal? The gathering to Utah ended about a century ago, after all, and with a very few exceptions (like “Israel, Israel, God Is Calling”) the lyrics of that sort of song are painfully didactic and the melodies are boring. Really, not a good combination, especially when it goes along with a message that goes against current church practice.

A thought for Pioneer Day

I have no pioneer ancestry—at all—but i’ve often had people tell me that i have a spiritual pioneer ancestry, ’cause my parents were taught by people with pioneer ancestry.

You could actually play that game with pretty much anyone in the church—if they weren’t taught by someone with pioneer ancestry, they were taught by someone with pioneer ancestry (or if their teachiers didn’t have pioneer ancestry, they were taught by someone who did…and so on).

Hmmm…

You know, i like this idea, i just don’t think it goes far enough. My parents were taught by someone with pioneer ancestry, who was taught by someone with pioneer ancestry, who was taught by someone with pioneer ancestry, and so on until you get to someone who was taught by someone from upstate New York (who was, if you want to take it even further, taught by angelic ministrants and deity).

So much for everyone in the church ultimately having a pioneer ancestry.

O pioneers!

Mormon veneration of the pioneers bothers me.

I’m not bothered by them being a part of the cultural and religious history of the church, and being discussed in that way, but i am bothered by two main parts of the way Mormon culture (at least in the US—i don’t know if this is the case elsewhere) deals with the concept of pioneers:

(1) A strong (but hopefully fading, at least in most geographic areas the church is in) cultural belief that the Mormon pioneers were super-fantastically righteous and most excellent people. Actually, i don’t see that in itself as a Bad Thing (though i’d argue it isn’t as true as some would like it to be) as long as it doesn’t get carried too far, but pretty much anything can get carried too far, and it seems to me that many Mormons do carry it too far—the most obvious case being the assumption that, since the Mormon pioneers were such most excellent and righteous (in both senses) dudes and dudines,* therefore their descendants have an inside track to excellentness and righteousness.

(2) The myopic lens through which Mormons view the concept of what a “pioneer” is. It scares me how few Mormons realize that the Mormon pioneers were actually a significant but still very small minority of the American pioneers. Remember, folks, it’s Nebraska that has Conestoga wagons on its state road signs, not Utah!

Actually, i’ll add a third one, which i think is actually related to (2), so i’ll call it

(2a) A need to extend the concept of “pioneer” beyond its usable scope. My parents, for example, weren’t pioneers—they were Southern Marylanders who happened to join the church back when it was still a really, really tiny presence there. There is nothing handcart about them, believe me. Trying to lump them in as “pioneers” is kind of insulting to both them and the mid-nineteenth century Mormon pioneers, i think.**

* Yes, according to the Oxford English Dictionary that’s the original feminine form.

**I guess what really bugs me most about my (2a) is that strikes me as an attempt to use a word to have it both ways—there are “The Pioneers”, and then there’s sort of a “oh, heck yeah, we’ll let you sit at our table, too”, but with what i see as a commonly-implied “if you really must intrude on our perfect Pioneer-descent society”. That’s overstating it, of course, but i really do think there’s some of that attitude around.

Overshooting for Zion

Quick question: If the early Mormon settlers of Utah were willing to travel so far to get to Zion, why didn’t they stop there instead of passing it up on the way?

Death and the Mormon pioneers

Why did the Mormon pioneers go through such privations, people often ask? Why, so that later generations would be able to bore us all with endless repetitions of stories about the <5% of the groups that faced abnormal injury/mortality rates, that’s why!