Posted by:
reasonabledoubt
(
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Date: April 10, 2012 01:53PM
A TBM Easter Tale, 2012
Easter means dinner with the TBM parents, and this year we decided to spend Saturday night at my folk's house in semi-rural Oregon, which we always enjoy, as they have a nice place on five acres of land near ponds and forest. My TBM sister and her Catholic husband and two kids also came down Saturday night. When any of my family gets together we play card games or board games -- that has always been our thing. On Saturday night I played two games of "Innovation," a fun card game, with my sister. 2-0 sweep, hehe. Anyway, on to the interesting stuff.
As I'd recently been accused of trying to "disabuse" my wife of her religion, I made a point of attending sacrament meeting at my parent's ward, along with my wife and two kids, as well my sister and her two kids. A show of support. My sister's husband went to a Mass by himself at the same time. As far as I know, this is their typical practice -- attending church separately each week, with the kids alternating between the two. God -- he really brings the family together. I usually attend sacrament meeting with my wife at her home ward anyway, but we've usually not gone when down at my parent's house on a Sunday.
Church started with a member of the bishopric reading a letter asking members to only submit the names of relatives for temple work, not those of celebrities or holocaust victims. Exact wording, seriously. The first speaker was a woman, probably in her 40s. She had that submissive young female teen voice you sometimes hear women speak in. I leaned over and asked my wife "Does that kind of voice bother you?" "Yes," she said, rolling her eyes.
The woman spoke about this and that, then all of a sudden got serious/tearful and said how at one point in her life she wished she were dead, in spite of having children and even grandchildren almost on the way. She looked young to be having grandchildren, so I'm guessing she was married and pregnant almost right out of the high school gate. Frank admissions like this in church are always interesting. Depressed Mormon housewife? Check.
Next came a medley of songs from the choir, led by a gay man around 30 years old (I'm guessing the age, not the orientation), who was married with a young baby. His wife sang in the choir. My father told me that this man actually came out while in high school. We've seen he and his wife sing on several occasions at the talent show of my parent's county fair held in August. It's a pretty serious talent show, with the winner receiving 1,000$ and an invitation to the state finals. The choir leader's wife won the county competition a couple of years ago. Last year one of the judges was a break-dancing RM who won both the county and state competition before serving his mission. He performed after the competition and was really good, in spite of his self-declared rustiness from having just returned from a mission.
Every year when we see the gay man and his wife, it gives my parents the opportunity to point out how one can overcome their homosexuality. Yeah, don't get me started.
After the choir sang, the Bishop closed out the meeting with a talk. The two stories he related were both about Elder Packer travelling abroad and how he wasn't able to help out the less fortunate on either occasion. In the first Elder Packer was on a train in Japan when a semi-leprous/seriously diseased looking man tapped on his train window, looking for some kind of handout. The train pulled away before Elder Packer could do anything (that must have really hurt the raisin in BKP's chest where a heart usually resides). The second story took place in Latin America. BKP was sitting on the stand (does the ego of an LDS leader ever allow them to sit in the pews with the regular folk in a meeting?) when a shabbily dressed young boy snuck in the back of the chapel, looking to score some sacrament victuals. I think the boy was shooed away but made a second sortee a minute or so later. I didn't really listen well to the rest of the story, so I'm not sure what happened. Maybe BKP gave the boy the sacrament leftovers, maybe he didn't, but either way, the stories did nothing but highlight the church's lack of regular charitable work.
The Bishop was tearing up, asking "What can we do as a church to help people? " Crying, because the church does nothing other than pitch in for the occasional international tragedy, always well-accompanied by KSL's camera crews at the airport letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing. "I guess," the Bishop continued, "that sharing the Gospel with them is the best thing we can do to help them." Yeah.
Picture Jesus showing up at the leper colony, standing in front of them all, arms spread wide. "Check it out, y'all, I'm Jesus!" No healing, no comforting. "You want Good News? I'm it!" "Alrighty then!" and moving on to share the news of himself to the next lucky group.
Picture Jesus, instead of feeding the multitudes with a few fishes and loaves of bread, just standing there smug-faced instead. "I'm your Savior! Feast upon me with thine eyes and forget about your hungry bellies!" Thanks, Bish, for pointing out how un-Christlike the church is. The 5 billion dollar great and spacious mall certainly came to mind when he asked how the church could help the afflicted of the world.
After the weekly hour of suffering, there was the obligatory stop-off at the favorite coffee shack in town for a 2$ 16 oz salted caramel marshmallow latte and a chai for my wife, accompanied by a big slice from one of mom's delicious berry pies back at the ranch.
Fast forward to dinner -- spiral cut ham, sour cream potatoes, Rhodes' frozen rolls, green beans, and the traditional mint jello with pears on a whipped cream cheese base. At one point my wife went upstairs to check on our sleeping 2 year old, who'd been running a fever for a couple of days and was sleeping more than usual. Someone asked my BIL if he was going to eat any of the jello, as he didn't have any on his dessert plate yet. He assured everyone that he was going to have some.
"I took this recipe out of 'The Joy of Jello' and threw the rest of the book away," my Mom said.
This was a softball I couldn't resist.
"The Joy of Jello?" I asked. "Was that a 1970s sequel to 'The Joy of Sex'? After the success of Volume I, we bring you Volume II: 'The Joy of Jello'!"
My Catholic BIL snickered a little bit, while my sister and parents put on their most serious faces.
"That's not funny," my mom said, after an awkward for them moment.
"It is for people with a sense of humor."
"It's gross."
Ah, the healthy relationship between Mormons and sex.
I told my wife about the joke later that night. She was glad she wasn't there so as not to have to try and suppress a laugh.
Oh yeah -- after the dinner prayer my 5 year old son proclaimed "My Dad doesn't believe in Jesus!" Thanks, buddy. "Well guess what?" my Mom said, "You're mom does, I do, Grandpa does, your aunt does," etc. etc. Well guess what, Mom? Your oldest daughter doesn't, and neither does either of your two sons, making the majority of your offspring non-believers, 3-2.
After dinner we played a game of "Agricola," a fantastic German board game. I scored 57 points, besting my previous personal high score by a point, winning by 9. After leftovers we hit the road for the 1+ hour drive home, stocked with a ziploc bag of ham and 3 bags of frozen berries.
I hadn't seen my parents for a while, so it was nice to get together. My Dad and I have had a near-constant exchange of emails on religious and political topics this year, so it's good to get together in person and be normal with each other, re-establishing that in spite of our differing opinions on so many things in the world that we're still family and are entitled to our own views and beliefs.