mr síóg and I were discussing Mormons and Easter. He's a never-mo, and he's never been to Mormon service. So he's got no idea what sacrament meeting is like, though I've tried to explain. In truth, we don't spend a lot of time on it, but it came up tonight.

So I'm trying to explain how there's no liturgy, no readings, and that Easter stands in line behind the other Mormon priorities. If you asked them, they'd say they celebrate Easter, but it seems TBMs in fact have no idea how others celebrate it, what a real Easter service is like.

Anyway, I'm trying to explain this, and I can tell he doesn't get it, not really. Then it occurred to me.

I rang my father today in SLC. He said my TBM sister and her family had been for a visit. They were in Utah because one of her sons had graduated from BYU -- they were there for the graduation.

This was Easter weekend, and they were in Utah for BYU graduation.

BYU's commencement was on Thursday. Convocations were on Good Friday.

This is was enabled me to finally make the point to him. They give lip service to celebrating Easter, but there's little understanding of the Christian tradition surrounding the whole week and the waypoints along the way. There's no way this would happen at a Catholic school, and I doubt many public schools would schedule this kind of conflict. Don't know about other demoninations.

It's a bit like the requirement that the members clean the ward houses on Saturdays. Even when it's Christmas. The Morg priorities must come before the common Christian tradition.

They think they are celebrating Easter, but they are so set on routine tasks they can't see the conflict.

It seems like they have such a big "to do" list all the time that they can't make any exceptions...

One more funeral? Someone has to bring the funeral potatoes.
One more wedding? The 8th one this month.
Is your home teaching done yet?
Is your lesson planned for your Sunday school class?
Do you have the refreshments for Easter done?

Like you said, the priorities are there: Get it done. The actual quality of what they are doing seems to escape them.

NO doubt all the talks today were on - you guessed it - PAY YOUR DAMN TITHES.

While I was a student at BYU I remember thinking how much more the school glorified it's own short history than the life or example of Jesus.

That year, around Christmas time, they had an art exhibit on the life of Joseph Smith. I thought that it was poor timing, when they could celebrate JS any time of the year...but at Christmas? So much of their time is spent celebrating their own people (e.g., JS, Emma, early Mormon leaders, Hinckley, Monson, and people like Boyd K. Packer) than that of examples in the Bible. I believe I know why...and I think much of it has to do with the HUGE egos so many Mormons have.

I remember how giddy, subtle-braggarts so many LDS members became when discussing their ancestral ties to the early church. None of the accomplishments were of their own doing, but being tied to their ancestral past somehow made them feel they had something to do with the present-day size of the church. This would be akin to the ancesters of Abraham Lincoln feeling enormous pride when visiting Washington D.C. in all of it's grandeur.

BYU and the church are oddities in my experience. Both remind me of Las Vegas in all of it's showiness, kind of like a ditzy showgirl with platinum blond hair, fake boobs, plastic surgery, and a great ass...yet with an IQ of 60.