Call to the Church

After running into someone who knows my family from church who told me something that made me feel the need to contact them assoonaspossible, I found myself going to the church on Sunday afternoon. The whole thing seemed to go by fairly quickly, which I found surprising; but after back-to-back-to-back 3 hour classes in school one three hour meeting is nothing.

I ended up attending Relief Society, which wasn't really preachy at all. I was pleasantly surprised at how the material, being the "hands of god", was made relevant to day-to-day life. There were quotes passed around which were read aloud, and I got one that seemed fitting (at least the first part) It read "Let our hearts and hands be stretched out in compassion towards others, for everyone is walking his or her own difficult path. As disciples of Jesus Christ, our Master, we are called to support and heal rather than condemn" Overlooking the 'jeebus iz mai master(bator)' part, it immediately reminded me of the Plato quote I happen to have posted by my door: BE KIND FOR EVERYONE YOU MEET IS FIGHTING A HARD BATTLE. The battle for me was trying not to leer at the hot chick around my age sitting across the room.

I noticed I had some semi-complete posts from way back when, which I will review and possibly put up.

Sex Stupidity

I've been buzy with - well, Life - so this blog, among other things, have gone to the back burner; But something on my mind does have connections to religion, so I can make a (somewhat) poignant post here.

People often think I'm male, especially in certain circles. Often it's because of cultural norms that I don't quite fit into.

In the online world, many people think I'm male. This may stem from the way I write, possibly resulting from what I read - certainly not the Bible! - or what I write about (further contributing to the stereotype that women should focus on "pleasant" and "uplifting" pursuits)

If you go to a ward event you will hear ethnic music from members of the congregation, or where they went on a mission; sometimes country music for an event like a square dance, or maybe an everyday event if you don't live in a city; but it's mostly upbeat, not too fast and not at all offensive pop and rock. Listening to "heavy" music is something generally looked down upon in church. It's especially unexpected for someone who isn't a male to prefer Ozzy to O-Town.

(Ok; this one is a slight stretch, but I wanted to have 3 points) Sexuality is hidden enough with men in church culture, but there's an assumption that women would not "inpurify" themselves with that sort of "sin". The fact that I am open about sex, and engage in non-Mormon-God-sanctioned sex, makes me even less of a "proper" woman.

Follow The Profit

Since Hinckley's death, I've heard the song "Follow the Prophet" a few times. I was reminded of Primary, where (like currently) I felt strange while listening to (and then, singing) to it. The tune sounds somewhat sad, with an equally ominous tone to the lyrics.

Drakkar has a song by the same title that is, at least in my Outer Darkness opinion, better:
"Here I'm alone
Look through the window
Snow's falling down
Winter has come
Think to the times
When we were happy
Changes I want
Freedom again

Many years ago the Major said: "Since today you gotta call me king"
Our liberty he took away, with the promise of a golden dream
Soon the dream became a nightmare
Soon the rebels they began to die
No one seemed to have the power to
Get rid of the Major of the Lies

There's a story about a man who lives
In the forest of the ancient rites
I am going now to search for him, if he does exist I want his guide
Then I find him and he says to me:
"I've been waiting for a pure so long
I am giving you the magic ring that will bring you to another world

Follow the prophet to Never, Neverland
Where all the free men together they will stand
A dream of liberty and peace for everyone
Under the light of the sun

I am coming back now, to the real world
To the land of freedom, I will bring you all
It is time for you now, all you slaves and poor
Break the chains that would never let you fly away
If you got the courage, and your heart is pure
All the pain and the sorrow you can behind"

I couldn't find a video for that song (which to me is tongue-in-cheek) but did find an acoustic cover of Kingdom of Madness they did:

Flying from the Fear

One part (2:27) really stood out to me, since I had a similar experience.
"You go to church and they're all like 'Do you accept God?' 'Do you believe God is in your heart?' and if you say 'no' ...Am I supposed to hear a little man inside my head? A voice telling me he loves me? ...Well, no; I didn't feel that... I don't feel anything when I go to church. That automatically made me think I was going to hell cause I didn't hear this little man in my head telling me stuff"

Mormonism and Food

I've gained some weight lately, and started thinking about my history with food, which turned to religion:

• Almost every Mormon event I've ever been to has had a buffet or some sort of food, even if it's just some chips and pop. The ones that didn't - and even then, someone usually brought something - always made sure not to start until 7 at the earliest, to allow people time to eat beforehand.
  
• I was rewarded with food for good behaviour at church, or just for the fact that we never ate before church (kinda catholic like) whether it was Fast Sunday or not and we had to take the bus home, which took about an hour.
  
• A memorable event in my young childhood was having food out on a Sunday once, because we would not have eaten until nighttime otherwise due to church and going to the hospital to see a relative. It felt weird, even though we would go to the same fast food place on Saturday or sometimes Monday (but usually not then, because of Family Home Evening) but also felt good, because we were doing something "bad"
  
• We didn't have a year (or two, according to extra-True Believers) worth of food storage, mostly due to lack of space, but we always did have a full pantry
  
• Unlike most LDS, we didn't eat that much healthy and unprocessed food, and our eating behaviours weren't the best either. We often watched TV from the dining room table, of course turning it off or putting it on mute during the prayer; however we still talked while eating and watching TV, unless it was some really "good" war news.
  

Lordless Life

I saw a reply to a video, which lead me to the original here. My reply pretty much centres around the first 35 seconds

nomoxian
If you're really against socialism, you should be opposed to the LDS religion as well. They're trying to create an earthly state -- assuming everyone sees The Truth and becomes a Member -- where everyone pays the same amount, each according to their ability. In turn they have agencies that provide help, such as food and clothing banks, according to peoples needs.

aaron0883
Read the works of the LDS prophet Ezra Taft Benson on politics (especially his essay titled "The Proper Role of Government"). The difference between charity and socialism is that charity is voluntary, and socialism is force.

nomoxian
everyone who wants to go to the temple - and receive eternal salvation - is required to pay tithing. if that isn't coercive force, i don't know what is.

aaron0883
People choose to be mormon. You do not have a gun to your head. If you refuse to participate in the mormon religion than you will be left alone. If you refuse to participate in a socialistic government than you will be enslaved or killed. I dislike all religions, including mormonism ... however i find socialism to be much worse.

This got me thinking, is it really voluntary?

It was easy for me to leave since I had doubts from a young age and shunned what I felt was wrong, but could not voice (by means of feminist and queer discourses) yet.

But what about others? Is it not like putting a gun to your head - in effect killing any real, true life 'in the hereafter' - if you cannot 'fufill your covenants'?

Smithmas

I've read it from other bloggers, and at least for me, it was True (if anything about The Church could be) that the lessons focused on Joseph, or lessons on the Chapel and Book of Mormon, instead of Jesus during the Christian celebration of the winter season.

By the time I got to Young Womans, I was rarely in class enough - let alone paying attention when I was - to analyze and comprehend anything they were attempting to indoctrinate me with. In Primary I do recall the lectures. They focused on the Smith story, even though they told us about 'Him' throughout the rest of the year.

At least in the Catholic church, they were half an hour at most and generally consisted of being given an interesting coloured lesson sheet, often including colouring sheets, and they had special Christmas stuff that consisted of more then a dinner with cold pastas and salads in the activity hall that seconds as a basketball court (and in some chapels, thirds as overflow for Sacrament)

Taking the Piss

Hell-oween Hoopla

Thankfully, I was able to celebrate Halloween like a normal kid; going out dressed up to go door-to-door for candy, then coming home to unload my bag and have it be inspected while a parent and I (or as I got older, a friend or a few and myself) went back out for more.

I can recall a Halloween celebration at the chapel [I can now add one more positive thing in regards to church] where they opened up the basement storage area, normally off-limits, as a haunted house. This wasn't like a Catholic Hell House, but an actual attempt at a spooky interior; full with little light, spider webs and one of those 'creepy music' tapes generally heard at the house with awesome candy that, despite being told not to re-visit, you can't help but go back (the sins of gluttony, envy and greed)

Since my cup is only half full (Really; the cup of juice beside my keyboard is half empty) the bad stuff should be included:

The holiday allowed for the discussion of "evil" within church, somewhat in lessons but mostly through general comments amongst the congregation. I don't remember much of these talks, but the thesis was Halloween = bad and you can get snacks *and* cool toys at Christmas - of course keeping the virgin birth as the focal point of the season spent tearing open gifts under the tree and shoving your face full of sugar cookies and chocolate.

Both holidays are pagan, but only one is bastardized by Christianity. Maybe if Christians were able to make Halloween 'theirs' - like as a way for them to "evade the evil spirits which plague this earth, I tells you, like this devil child, a little kid, dressed like the devil, came and demanded candy from my doorstep! What is this here world coming to?" - they would be less likely to lash out against it. On the other hand, I like having a holiday that is for everyone; you don't have to be religious to celebrate it but even if you are religious the only thing stopping you from celebrating it is yourself.

One of my pet peeves is people talking about x-mas / giftmas / non-denominational seasonal time before Halloween, so I'll end this post now with a hearty HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Gelatin Judgement

I've wondered for a long time why Mormons like green [insert gelatin brand of choice here] and couldn't come up with much:

• Greenie is a term for new missionaries, who are people that are a big part of church culture.
  
• Green is the colour of money in the country where Mormonism originated
  

There was never an abundance of gelatan products at chapel events, since most of the food was ethnic as my family attended a very ethnically diverse ward. Maybe someone else can answer: why do Mormons like green gelatin? Do Mormons even like green gelly?


Not the kind of gelatin you'd see at a Mormon party

Perhaps it's a personal thing, but I always prefered cherry, grape or even blue raspberry to lime.

Communion, complete with cheese pizza

I realize that this blog is pretty negative, so to balance things out a bit I'll write about something positive.

The best church memory I have was eating pizza at a 'party' in the basement of the Catholic church. It was to commemorate my first communion, which I later wasn't able to participate in due to familial conflict (But religion is supposed to bring people together!) For some reason it was permissible for me to partake in sacrament, the Mormon equilivent to communion, but not at the Catholic church.

The most positive thing that religion provided me was a few slices of pizza and some pop; and this was supposed to be a non-negative post.

Domino's Pizza, which was created by a very right-wing Christian, happens to be my favourite (Other then Pizza Hut, which apparently is Mormon-run)

Religious Refrain

Back when I went to church I generally listened to rock and classical (weird mix, I know) so the music played there bored me not only due to it's religious aspect but the monotonous harmonies.

Despite how many other bloggers describe remembering the church songs many years later, I had enough trouble recalling the words when I was sitting on the hard plastic Primary chair. Perhaps this was because I was daydreaming and counting down the hours and mintues to when church would end. Perhaps it was also that since third grade I only attended twice monthly, when visiting my Mormon parent.

In the Catholic chapel all of the songs had religious connotations, but I remember really liking a song that went like, "though the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust, the love of the lord will stand, as a shelter to all who will call on his name, sing the praise and the glory of god" Even though at that point I was agnostic, leaning on the atheist side, I still looked forward to when this song was on the playlist.

I didn't like any songs sung in Sacrement, especially when I started attending the Catholic church, which while bland was energetic compared to the Mormon sermon. The Primary song that I enjoyed was "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree", firstly because it was silly but secondly since it had nothing to do with religion, which the Mormon church showed me more then anything that it was something to be shunned.

This is the same hymn book used when I went to church. According to Deseret Books, it's been in circulation since the 80s

Fireside

When I first heard of this, my first thought was something along the lines of "Radical!" (This was a loooong time ago) I, thinking it was a campout, wanted to attend.

Even after being told it was going to be a talk, I still wanted to go, thinking it would somehow be different from all the other boring church talks - which I got through by drawing, reading and taking trips to the washroom which often lead to running down the chapel halls and going into rooms I shouldn't have been in, which occasionally resulted in open corporal punishment (Like I said, this was a long time ago, though I wouldn't be shocked to see such action still accepted in a meetinghouse)

My Mormon parent, older and in this case wiser, decided I should stay home instead.

General Conference

Two words which sometimes meant 'no church' (at least not in the same sense) but others it meant not only enduring Sunday but having to waste the one other weekend day as well.

I stopped going by the time I would have had to sit in - I did go to a talk from the Prophet, which I will describe in greater detail in another entry - so all I recall is watching religious cartoons on a VHS. The producers probably thought it would be a good way of getting the message to young children, but it was lost to my glazed over eyes (With a sports loving father, I got used to 'not' watching TV)

I didn't consciously reject religion, at least not at first. It just seemed as unreal as the images on the screen.

This gal, known as Dr. Deseret, is devoutly LDS. Certianly not your Molly Mormon.

Baptism Bullshit

Since one cannot be baptised as a Mormon until the age of 8, I was not baptised in the Catholic religion until that age as well.

At that point I was pretty agnostic, but thought there couldn't be any harm in being baptised. I thought it would put me in the clear for going to heaven/higher kingdom and it would make my family happy.

The Catholic baptism was more foreign, as the basin was made for an infant. I had seen some Mormon baptisms previous to mine, and children are introduced to the ritual through pictures and stories from a young age. I didn't have the same exposure to the more traditional chrisitan rites; At that point I didn't think Mormons were christian, as I was told that by family who were members (which apparently is inproper doctrune)

This image was a common sight in my chapel.

I was 'dunked' on my 8th birthday, by my full preisthood holding father. I don't have a strong memory of it, as one often does of a memorable experience. I just remember going through the motions and not feeling fully comfortable with it, as with any other church experience.

After one's baptism they give the Holy Ghost to the recipient. I remember closing my eyes and trying to focus, thinking maybe this will be the time everything would be revealed to me; It was not, and I was left with more doubt then before.


More thoughts on the holy ghost and baptism to come....

Unpleasing Prayer

Prayer is really big with Mormons and Catholics alike, as well as many other forms of faith.

Waiting to eat, even though it was only a couple minutes longer, due to prayer was annoying. While I enjoyed the attention attached to being asked to lead the prayer, as I became older I did not like the fact that my gaining it was done so through that manner. Around the time I started to attend school, I recall sneaking bites of "untainted" food either before or during prayer.

Prayer during church was boring, especially since I often kept my eyes open and just sat there waiting for it to be over. When I did actively participate, I did not experience what others felt (beyond the occasional side effects of light meditation) and therefore had no real testimony - which is essential to ones faith under Mormon doctrune.

Introduction to Idiocy

My parents are Mormon and Catholic, which is uncommon as Mormons are steered to date and marry within the church since "a family that prays together stays together". My parents eventually dicorced, but it was not merely resulting from their religious differences.

I do not recall this, but my non-Mormon parent says they went to the Mormon meetinghouse. Obviously, the didn't stay for long. From the time I can remember, they went to the cathedral. I was jealous to attend, partly out of curiosity but also because the Catholic church seemed better:

• The service was only an hour. Mormon services are three hours long, but since most adults have voluenteer jobs to do it is longer then that.
  
• The Catholic building was beautuful whereas the Mormon chapel looked somewhat like a school, the biggest difference was that the floors were carpeted (bad idea, considering the number of small, messy children)

One of my earliest memories in church was being sad since I had to go to Sunbeams (the youngest age-geared Sunday School connected to Primary, which is for all children) The teacher used candy cigarettes - which are considered a sin, as outlined in the Word of Wisdom - to teach something, which I cannot remember. The first lesson I gained through the church was that their confusing rules were of little consequence.