Friday, August 7, 2015

What’s a poor boy to do?

I dislike attending church.

They say it’s supposed to be a hospital for sinners, but how IS that exactly?

Sitting through wrote sacrament services are bad enough.  But I fail to see anything of value in attending the other mind-numbing meetings.  You know, the ones where folks basically read directly from “correlated” manuals, and then solicit the most basic (Jr. Sunday School) answers from the remains of the congregation (the majority of whom prefer to wander the halls, or visit in the foyer or parking lot).  If this is a hospital, then this type of “treatment” can’t be anything other than cruel and unusual.

To make matters worse, the majority of those who do go to class to receive instruction don’t even seem to have a rudimentary understanding of the actual gospel, let alone the ability to have a thoughtful discussion of a gospel principle or doctrine.  And they all, to the very last one, lack any kind of reasoning or critical thinking skills.  In fact, most of them are so anti-intellectual, that they pride themselves in being uneducated.

Oh, I’ve tried.

Make no mistake.

I’d find a time where I could raise my hand to participate and suggest a deeper than the surface principle or doctrine.  The result is always the same. A couple of what most folks would call “loonies,” completely misunderstand everything, and go off on some tangent, and then the rest of the class, joins them in the weeds.  It all makes me want to award them no points, and ask for mercy on their souls.

I can’t remember the last time I could sit through and entire Sunday School class (and after the few that attend actually sit down, shut up, have an opening prayer and waste time introducing visitors, it’s usually only about 20-30 min long).  I used to just sit in the hall and study my scriptures.  But my wife (who gets to teach primary, so she doesn’t have to attend herself) has been after me to “make an effort;” so I’ve tried to go the last few weeks.  And inevitably, about 10-15 minutes in, things have gone off the rails so much that I can’t stand to stay, and I leave to “go to the restroom” and then just never come back.

Elders Quorum is just as bad, but since I’m the Secretary, and have to take roll (and because we are in a tiny room where if I leave its just too obvious) I have to sit through it.  Funny thing, is that when our BYU loving, TBM EQ president discusses the lessons in presidency meetings, he always says “I think they are going very well.” Apparently his definition of going “very well” is a hardliner conference talk he selects on the 1st and 4th weeks, and a correlated manual lesson on the 2nd and 3rd weeks, that the unlucky schmoe that answered their phone Saturday night, reads, verbatim, or maybe has the class read, paragraph at a time .  It’s mind numbing, and on the occasions I’ve been forced to teach a conference talk (Lynn Robbins “Which Way Do You Face?”) , I’ve told the quorum that this guy is just flat out wrong, and then supported my stand with scriptures.

But, no one gets it.

No one cares.

And honestly I feel like I’m just wasting my time, every time I attend.

I know “the church” is different from “The Church™” and that “all is NOT well in Zion.”  I have a testimony that “the gospel” is true, but I have serious doubts that the trademark of the sole corporation, can possibly be “true” in any sense of the word.  I see it as being far more Mamon than Mormon.  I know what the fruits of  “The Church™” are, and I’m far less than impressed.  However, I believe in giving deference to the modern scribes and Pharisees who sit in Moses' seat. (So long as what they teach is not contrary to 1) the scriptures; 2) the former prophet’s teachings; 3) the spirit, and 4) the principle of charity.) I know that just because someone with alleged “authority” says it, doesn’t make it either right or true (although it doesn’t necessarily preclude it from being either).

Yet apart from a couple of old guys (High Priests in their 80's) that like to talk to me about hunting stories in the halls between classes, I feel like I’m alone in a ward of morons, that HAVE the scriptures, and the capacity to study (as opposed to just “read”) them, and engage in real, substantive gospel discussions.  But none seem willing.  (No wonder the Lord put the Church under condemnation.)

It’s all hugely discouraging, and when I come home, depressed from yet another week of “enduring to the end” my wife gets upset with me for having a bad attitude.

She thinks I’m giving our teenage daughters a legitimate reason for not liking our ward (we were “realigned” a couple years ago, and have never liked the resulting “new ward,” nor has anyone else I’ve discussed it with).  I think the ward is giving my daughters plenty of reasons for not liking it just fine by itself, and I’d far rather teach my girls that “the church” is different from “The Church™” and that while “all is NOT well in Zion,” we still need to do our part to bring about Zion, even though it appears many generations off to me.

But then again, I’m Dence

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Getting To (and From) My Mission

After my first year of college, I was called to serve an LDS mission in New Zealand.

I almost didn’t go.  I didn’t want to.

As I said in my first post, I had 5 good friends in highschool.  Despite being from a small rural town, all 6 of us went to college.  Well, all 6 of us would have if the football team captain hadn’t died the summer after graduation.  The other 5 did go, 2 to U of U, 2 to Dixie and the Seminary Class President to BYU (of course).

When I came home from school at the end of that first year for Mother’s day I experienced something that in hindsight I believe to be the ministering of angels.

I knew I was expected to go on a mission.  I knew as the oldest of 4 boys, I was supposed to set an example by going.  But I also knew what “The Church” was like.  How the members (at least in my estimation) mistreated my non-member and less active friends, acting superior, when any objective measurement proved they were anything but.  To me everyone in my tiny town, and every neighboring town were such hypocrites.  I wanted nothing to do with them, or the organization they claimed gave them such superiority over all “others.”

I had only attended church while at school once or twice a month, out of duty more than anything else.  And 3 of my 4 remaining friends would never let me hear the end of it if I went on a mission.  So here I was, planning to tell my folks that I wasn’t going on a mission when the week before my debate partner decided HE was going on a mission (I think mainly because his girlfriend was too).  We’d just returned from the national debate tournament, where we’d gotten the bronze.  We planned to take gold the following year.  Before coming to Utah my debate partner had been a bit of a hellion where he’d grown up in Texas and his parents had sent him to school in Utah to be by his grandfather, who was going to try to straighten him out.  So if I didn’t go on a mission too, I’d have to find a new partner, and there were no good prospects.  I’d get to keep my scholarship, but without my partner, I had no prospect of taking gold with some unknown new partner.

So I went home for Mother’s day weekend, with all of this on my mind and I ended up in the cemetery, in front of my grandparents headstone on Saturday night.  I was praying, but basically I was making an argument for why I shouldn’t have to go on a mission.

I’ve read others that think that receiving revelation is something that you may not fully comprehend at the point in time that you actually have the experience, but that it distills upon you after, to bring to your mind more of what actually happened. (ala justification for multiple accounts of Joseph Smith’s “First Vision.”) Perhaps that’s true.  Or perhaps we just “remember” things differently as we get older, and our present thoughts, experiences and world views shape those memories.  I’d like to believe in the former, though I expect that the weight of the evidence is with the latter.

Anyway, my current recollection of the event is that as I was basically arguing against serving a mission in prayer, I felt the presence of my grandmother, and was distinctly told that it didn’t matter what anyone else did, or didn’t do.  I knew God lived, I believed in Christ and his atonement, and I needed to go on a mission to teach people those things.

So I repented, saw my “family ward” bishop on Mother’s Day before returning to school, and “put in my papers” right then.

My call came on the day I was moving home from school for the summer.  The engine in my car had thrown a rod, and I had just coasted into the parking lot of a truck stop when the car gave up the ghost.  I had called home for my folks to come and get me.  My dad had to go to town, rent a u-haul tow dolly, and then load everyone up in the family van and drive 2 hours to get me.

I’d fallen asleep waiting, and woke to my mom excitedly banging on the window, with my “mission call” in her other hand. (They hadn’t mentioned it had come when I called for help 4-5 hours earlier)

I’d never had a desire to learn another language, and when I put in my papers and I’d been asked by my bishop where I wanted to go if I could choose, I said, Australia (where my grandpa had gone).

When I opened the letter I was still kind of half-asleep, but when it said I was called to the New Zealand, Christchurch mission, it might as well have said Mars.  I had some vague recollection of seeing a church calendar growing up with a big wooden windmill, and thought it was in New Zealand (I’m pretty sure it was actually the Netherlands). That was all I knew.  But I was happy because I got to leave the US, and I didn’t have to learn a language.

I spent that summer working two jobs to save for my mission.  Open to mid-day at the fast food place, followed immediately by mid-day to close at the retail place.  I had just enough “free” time to get my wisdom teeth out, get my biggest moles removed, and get my shots and passport/visa applications in.  I didn’t spend much time learning about where I was headed.

When I finally got to the MTC in mid-August, I finally learned something about New Zealand.  The country is made up of the north and south islands.  The top 2/3 of the north island is where most of the Maori’s live, and where the other Pacific Islanders typically live (they are still the minority in most places there though).  The bottom 1/3 of the north Island is where Wellington, the capitol is, and that area plus the whole south island are predominantly white settlers (Pakehas). At the time I served in New Zealand there were 2 missions, Auckland, which had the top 2/3 of the north Island, and Christchurch, which had the rest of the north island, and all of the south island.

While I was in the MTC I again experienced something that in hindsight I believe was the ministering of angels.  I ran into an elderly couple that recognized my surname from my name tag, and claimed to have known my grandparents.  A couple days later I ran into the sister again (alone, which was very odd), who gave me a greeting card.  It was the blank type that just has a picture on the front, and you can write whatever you want on the inside.  She had written a little note about my grandparents, and then quoted a list of what she said were her favorite scriptures.  It was basically all of the Ask . . Seek . . . Knock . . . verses in the D&C.  It would be the very end of my mission before I began to understand the significance of that card.  (When I later tried to look the couple up, no one new anything about them.)

A couple weeks later, I was on a plane to New Zealand.  I’m not sure what I expected, but I remember being rather surprised that it wasn’t that different from the US, terrain wise at least.  Sure, there were more ferns, and it was much greener than the west, but still, not that different.

My 3rd area, an area that was purported to have been closed after Matthew Cowley dusted his feet there, some 50 years before, and was re-opened with my companionship and another companionship comprised of the outgoing Assistant to the President, and the guy who would be the next Assistant to the President.  They were the Zone Leaders (or “the Feds” as I called them), and we were just a lowly “co-equal” companionship.  It was miserable.

I don’t hate anyone.  Really, I don’t.  But I came as close to hating this guy as anyone I’ve ever met.

He was the kind of guy that if he couldn’t go to BYU he’d just rather not go to college, but he wasn’t bright enough to get in, so he had to go to Ricks College (since re-named BYU-Idaho).  He was my opposite in every way.  And to make matters worse, the mission president got the idea to use a phony survey as a door approach, and we were the pilot area to test this out.  I quickly realized that we weren’t conducting any legitimate research, just trying to deceive people into talking to us in hopes that we could get in to teach them a discussion.  I refused to participate, citing scripture to prove that we couldn’t be dishonest and expect to be able to have the spirit with us.  This just enraged my companion.

When I voiced my concerns to the mission president, his response was to make a list of 5-6 standard questions, and to require us to actually record the responses, so that is was “a real survey.”  He then took the first weeks responses and wrote a PR piece for the local paper saying “Survey Shows Families Important.”

I continued to refuse to participate, and would attempt regular door approaches.  But my “brown nosing” companion would interrupt with his phony survey, until he finally just started taking every door, as I just stood behind him and probably looking disgusted.

Despite having ZERO success with this “surveying” the mission president then decided to institute the program mission wide.

I was given a new companion, then transferred to another area, and then another.  I explained my position on “surveying” to each of my companions, and declined to participate in the sham.  Some were OK with it, others couldn’t fathom that I would even dare question this “inspired” program, and couldn’t critically analyze an argument to save their lives.

I continued to adamantly fight against what I saw as an uninspired, reprehensible program, based on deceit, even arguing with the mission president in “PPI’s” at zone conferences about it.  I’m sure most of my companions complained about me in their weekly written reports to the mission president too.  Finally things came to a head, and the mission president sent me a letter saying I had 3 choices: 1) get with the program; 2) go home; or 3) transfer to the Auckland Mission.  I thought about it.  I fasted about it. I prayed about it. And I received a revelation to go to the Auckland Mission.  Of course, that wasn’t my original call (And since when can a missionary, or a mission president for that matter, issue a mission call.  Aren’t these things supposed to be done by the inspiration of at least an apostle?), so about 3 months after I got to Auckland, I got a “new” mission call that simply said “because of circumstances, you mission call has been changed to the Auckland, New Zealand Mission.” and signed presumably by Ezra Benson’s shaky auto-pen.

The Auckland mission president was night and day different from his south island counterpart.  He was a big lanky former BYU basketball playing, Geneva steel mill working, blue collar guy who knew the scriptures as well as anyone I’ve ever met, and taught his missionaries deep doctrines.   He taught us all about seeking the face of the lord, of the Abrahamic covenant, and how it applied to both us, and those we were teaching, and a multitude of other things, that I may touch on in future posts.

I think I was kind of shell shocked from the trauma of what I’d been through in the other mission, and it took a few months to fully get back into things, but eventually I did, and by the end of my mission I was doing great.  (I also learned that the area presidency had issued a memo prohibiting the use of “surveying” in any mission in the pacific area a few months after I’d switched missions.)

I baptized 3-4 times more people in the last two months of my mission, than I had in the entire other 22 months combined.  More importantly, I was able to teach people with the spirit.  My mission president wanted me to extend, even just a couple more weeks, and go home alone, rather than with the group of returning elders.  I declined, as I needed to get back to register for classes and start school.  I’m actually glad I did.

This was when missionaries were NOT allowed to attend the temple while on their missions, except for a single session, the day before they returned home, provided there was a temple in their mission (or a neighboring one, as the Christchurch elders also got to do the same I think).  When I went to the temple who should I find there, but my 1st grade teacher and her husband, my elementary school bus driver.  They had just finished a mission in Australia, and were touring New Zealand before going home.  But that wasn’t the really significant thing to occur.  As we sat in a room waiting to enter the chapel, discussion our missionary experiences, I had the experience that has kept me in the church.  I’ve never discussed it with anyone, and have no intention of doing so now.  But I saw and learned things which I am certain most (if not all) general authorities (or corporate board members) have never experienced. I later found many prophets that had similar experiences, and with their world views and education from their day, must have truly been amazed.  Not that I wasn’t too.  And not that I claim to be a prophet. I’m no more a prophet, than the next guy.  What I do know is that this experience wasn’t based on my “worthiness,” nor on my “righteousness” as I had, and still have a long way to go before I’m ever mistaken for either being worthy or righteous.    But I am certain that it was, at least in part, the result of my being tested.

For decades, I believed that because this experience happened in an LDS temple, that was “proof” of not only of the “truth” of the Mormon religion, but specifically of the Utah (Corporate) LDS version of that religion.

I’m not so sure anymore.

- - - -

After word

About 5 years ago I had another experience.  I was 1st counselor in the Elders Quorum, and the Stake, (in a transparent effort to “teach leadership”) had essentially ordered the Elders Quorum president to MAKE his counselors “teach a lesson.” The topic was to be “what topic should we teach the quorum about?”

What? A lesson to figure out what another lesson should be?

I refused, telling the president it was a waste of time.  He responded by telling me I didn’t understand the assignment, and that it would be fine.  The 2nd counselor suddenly decided to leave town for the weekend, and Saturday night I finally confirmed that it was exactly what I thought it was.

I knew better.  I should have just taught a lesson that the spirit directed me to.  But I caved, and wasted an hour of everyone’s lives.  We came up with a handful of topics, none of which we ever had a subsequent lesson on.  Instead, the bishop made the president talk to the quorum about masturbation two weeks later, and then we were all released.

What I’ve know all along, but apparently keep forgetting, is that when I know what the right thing to do is, I need to do it; regardless of who disagrees with me.

I did the right thing and went on a mission, despite the opinion of the majority of my friends, and my own personal feelings about the membership of the church.

I did the right thing and refused to conduct a phony survey as a missionary, and though I basically went through hell because of it, I ended up with the most important experience of my life.

But 15 years later, I forgot, (or maybe I just felt too tired to fight) and I did something (no matter that it was fairly minor) because those who thought they had a little power or authority, wanted me to.

I’ve since promised myself, NEVER AGAIN, but like I said, I’m Dence

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Who Are You?

I am your brother.

I was born to a mother who had converted to the LDS faith a few years before my birth, and a Father who had been born in the covenant, as had his father, and his father before him.

My paternal great-great grandfather joined the LDS faith in Switzerland after attending a single meeting, at the request of his mother.  He crossed the Atlantic, and then the plains, not once, but 3 times, before the railroad was built.  He married a pair of sisters. He left his families and returned to Switzerland to serve a mission. He was the clerk over the finances of the local United Order until it’s forced dissolution.  He served time in the penitentiary for practicing polygamy.  He was a weaver, a farmer, a miller and a businessman.

My paternal great grandfather was the oldest son born to his father’s first wife.  Like his father, he was also a farmer, and in that capacity, he died in an accident where his head was crushed by a wagon.

My paternal grandfather was his infant son at the time, and like his father, and his father before him, was a farmer too.  Not that that was his desire.  He wanted to be a forest ranger.  But being the son of a widow, he had no opportunity for higher education, and was forced to take over the family farm.
Somehow he was able to serve a mission in Australia, but he never really had an opportunity to travel after that.

My father graduated from BYU, and served a mission in Brazil.  He was a high school teacher by profession.  He met and married my mother in southern California, where I was born.  But shortly thereafter they moved back to Utah so that my dad could help my grandpa run the farm.  He built a house next door to his parents, working on it nights, weekends, and during summer vacations (He sort of finally finished it when I was in college, after which he sold it).  He taught school during the school year, and farmed during the summer.  When I was about 4, my grandfather died, and my dad ended up running the farm by himself.

As the oldest of 4 boys, I began driving (OK more like steering) the tractor while my dad stood on the wagon and pulled bales off the the elevator and stacked them at the age of 8.  We had ~120 acres of farm, about ½ of which was either barley or alfalfa, and the rest usually pasture, and anywhere from 20-150 pair of beef cattle on the farm where I grew up.

I was very close to my grandmother, until she died about 3 years later.  I would go to her house every day, and sit on her lap, and she would read to me.  Until I began to read to her.  Like my dad, I much preferred to read a book (or watch a movie when we finally got one of the first VCR’s) to plowing, seeding, furrowing, irrigating, swathing, baling, or hauling hay, or to feeding cows.  I still did all of those things, but usually only when I had to.

The ward I grew up in never really accepted my mother, because she was a convert to the church, and came from God-less California.  I had the distinct impression that they never cared much for me either.  Maybe that’s why I’ve probably spent less than 48 hours there in the last 30-35 years.
As soon as I turned 16 (and had 3 younger brothers who could help on the farm) I got a job in the nearest town.  First in fast food, then in retail.

During these years I had a group of 5 friends.  In a graduating class of 72 (70 of whom were members), the six of us were an odd combination.  We had the football team captain, a guy who lived down the street from me since 4th grade, who was an inactive member all his life; the student body president, who moved in when we were in the 10th grade, who was the only Methodist in our school; the editor of the school paper, an atheist, who was also the smartest kid in school (once his even smarter brother graduated and went to Yale); the Principal’s son, who had been my best friend from the time he moved to my tiny town when we were 4 or 5, until he moved 2 towns over to live next to the school when his dad changed from being a teacher to an administrator, he was an active member until he was old enough to find excuses not to attend church, about 16; and the Seminary Class President, the middle child of a family of 5, his father had died when he was in Kindergarten, and I’d known him ever since.  He was my only good friend growing up that actually lived the gospel.

When I was younger, I liked to argue.  I was a debater in high school, and for my first two years of college.  Between my first and second year of college I served a mission in New Zealand.  It was an experience that stays with me to this day, not for what I did, but for how it ended.

When I returned from my mission I got a job working in a law firm, and (with the exception of being a welfare eligibility worker during my senior year of college) have done so since.

I also lost my fire for arguing for argument’s sake.  I only do it when I’m paid to at this stage of my life. (Since I'm not being paid to write this blog, I don't plan on arguing with any visitors who may feel inclined to attempt it.)

I graduated with a degree in Sociology, and a minor in Applied Ethics.  After college I went to law school, where by chance I was able to room with my one of my best friends from high school.  The one that was my only good friend growing up that actually lived the gospel.  He got married after the end of our 1st year of law school.  But not before dragging me to the “Young Adult/Student Ward” and making sure I did more than just show up for the 3-hour block on Sunday.

I got married  after the end of my  2nd year of law school.  My wife is 5 years older than me, and we have 3 daughters together.  We met in the “Young Adult/Student Ward” and we were “just friends” until we realized that we were actually dating, and 2 months late we were married in the temple.

I’m an attorney by profession.  It’s what I wanted to do since I was in high school.  I’m not sure what I’d do if I didn’t practice law. I am sure I could make a lot more money, and work a lot more, if I’d stayed in a big city where I had a partnership offer some 14 years ago, but I don’t.   Instead I chose to move to a rural area, where I have a general, solo practice.

I abhor politics.  The US political party system is just plain evil to me.  It, falsely I believe, tells people they only have 2 real choices, and both of those choices are so heavily influenced by the super rich, that there’s very little difference between them. Yet both parties rely on stirring up contention, by paying lip service to social issues that they can distinguish (or more accurately divide) them from “the other.” Regrettably, almost everyone I know views the world around them through the lens of the political party they tend to agree with.

For the record, I think I was registered as a Republican when I turned 18 (because it was Utah, and that’s pretty much all there was), I think I registered as a Democrat in California, when I returned from my mission, because that’s who was doing the registrations on the mall where I was walking at lunch time from my summer job (and I wanted to be a California resident for school purposes).  But when I moved to Nevada, I registered as “NON PARTISAN.” No it’s not the same as independent, or 3rd party, or anything else.  It’s NO PARTY affiliation.  No one in the last 20+ years has done anything to convince me to join a political party, but plenty have confirmed my decision to remain unaffiliated.

While liberals may claim to have common ground with many of my thoughts, they also disavow many others. Conservatives, on the other hand, I find don’t really have many thoughts, other than what’s fed to them through their party machinery (though liberals are also more and more guilty of this too) but as long as they don’t open their mouth (and remove all doubt), we generally get along, and enjoy many of the same things I do.  The problem is most of them can’t resist the temptation to proselytize for their party/world view at every opportunity.

I wrote a theory essay in college once where I said, Conservatives (who I believe for see the past as far better than it actually was, and fear for a future far worse than it ever actually turns out) are fools because they refuse to see any problems with “the system” that can't be fixed by regressing to how things used to be; Liberals are cowards and fools (for claiming to see many major problems with “the system,” but for thinking they can just make minor changes to fix major flaws; and for failing to actually even make those minor adjustments when they have the chance) and our only hope is in Radicals.  Of course the problem, as I’ve since come to see it is that while radical change is needed to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth, there is no one with an actual plan that appears to be in place to achieve that. (Well, no one who is mortal.)

History is replete with examples of how a people can have a good life under a good king, but things are turned upside down when the successor king is not good.  Whether that “King” is a single man, or a small group of super rich men, appears to make no difference.  Other than, I’ve never seen an example of a group of good oligarches.

Well, that’s the way I see it, but then again, I’m Dence

 ----

OK, this is part 1 of my personal history and commentary.  I guess I’m writing it mainly to give prospective readers some insight into why I may believe what I do.  In this blog I’d like to write about certain issues that I find interesting or important, and hopefully get your feedback.  I figure, if you understand where I’m coming from, you may be able to have a better conversation with me.