Posted by:
Jesus Smith
(
)
Date: June 17, 2013 12:23PM
When I went back to church for a short bit last fall, as an agnostic, I wrote this excerpt about my experience:
I drive into the rainy parking lot and take in the LDS chapel building—brown-stone, white steeple, trimmed lawn, black asphalt. It could’ve been airlifted, whole building and grass, from Anytown, Utah and plopped over a field dashed with a few Florida palms. The palms alone make it different and on the verge of non-Mormon. Inside, it is again distinctly Mormon—stiff carpeted halls just wide enough for two of us to pass, heavily papered walls and unnaturally pale white lights. On the hall tables there are signups clamped to clipboards (clip-jobs, as I call them) advertising for youth activities and eagle-project collection drives. Missing are the sign-ups for feeding the homeless and volunteering at shelters. The halls are besieged with a diverse crowd, just entering meetings. This distinction—not the pale white skin matching the lights, but a crowd of a few Blacks, many Hispanics, Polynesians and of course Whites—is unexpected. The men of all races, however, do have the all-too common white shirt, dark tie/suit coat uniform. You’ve probably seen it on the bike-riding missionaries of your local neighborhood, whom you’ve hid from when they come ringing.
Sacrament meeting starts first. All the members are there together, kids climbing on the seats having Cheerio wars with the ones behind them. I don’t fault the parents for letting the children spoil the chapel floor with bits o’ broken crayons and raisins. I’ve been a young parent at church and you do what you must to keep them content while feigning interest with a smile in the testimony bearing at the pulpit. It’s funny that the adults are the ones playing pretend at church and the children are being honest. I find myself sighing and eye-rolling at the phrase-tossing of "Book of Mormon" this and "Joseph Smith" that. But I need to play stoic; switch on the poker face, so that, despite the flash of my cloth, I don’t stand out in character. Not yet.
Still, the utterly monotone drivel about what I could never remember propels a hand to my coat pocket to retrieve my cell phone. I text a friend who’s left Mormonism long ago and with whom I console myself when I need to dull my LDS-pain. I tell Marla that I am at church. She immediately texts back, "Bullshit. Really?" I confirm it to her and let her know that I may be here for the long haul. MormonThink, among its many unnamed true-believing Mormon contributors, has an active member as managing editor. Attending is my cross to bear (one prior editor had to resign quietly when the church came for him, something I may find difficult to forestall in my case). She tells me she is in her tank top, mowing her lawn, which in her Utah township, is almost across the street from the church (in UT most houses are across or up the street from an LDS chapel).
The Sacrament meeting ends without anything noteworthy. Dull dull. This is hallmark. I wait in the back, wondering who will notice me and introduce themselves with the clamping handshake and polyurethane welcome. People see me, but no one approaches. Finally, wondering where I will go to the next class—gospel doctrine—I turn to a couple sitting near. They shrug when I ask where to go. They’re new too. We get chatting and find out they’re newlyweds and that we have a few Mormony things in common, but it is overly dull dull. Then we form a wholesome threesome and seek the next lesson together.
In gospel doctrine they ask us new members to introduce ourselves. There are five of us, in a class of maybe twenty. One is a man from Laie, Hawaii, wearing a pale Lavalava skirt and bright lei over the uniform (the dark suit coat, tie and white shirt). If he had left out the suit coat, he would have one-upped me in flash. But I still stand out with my jeans and flowery shirt; they recognize my strangeness and I’m required to stand to tell them my name, and that I am a member who hasn’t attended in years returning to see what’s what in Mormonville. I get through this introduction two more times by the end of the three-hour block and I keep it as short as I can.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2013 12:26PM by Jesus Smith.