All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Primary

At week #5 on the Island of Misfit Toys, we heard the counselors in the new bishopric speak. The bishop himself did not speak as he was out of town, visiting grandkids.

One of the bishopric members spoke on the theme "All I Really Need to Know I Learned on the Farm," based on the Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Both talks were great and got me to thinking, with all due to respect to both counselors and Mr. Fulghum, of a list of my own:

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Primary.

1. Nobody cares if you can't sing well; join in anyway. And if a song has actions that accompany it, such as "Popcorn Popping," you better darn well do them.

2. Speaking of which, you won't always sing soprano. Enjoy it while it lasts.

3. Be quiet and polite when others speak, just as you hope others will give you the same respect when you speak.

4. Respect and listen to your teacher. That may be your calling someday.

5. Speaking of which, be afraid of the Blazer B boys. Be very afraid. It's strange how karma works.

6. Even so, some bratty or misbehaving kids turn out to be fantastic, well-behaved adults. And vice versa.

7. Speaking of which, some girls I once thought of as "plain" grew up to be downright foxy. Just as flowers and trees need time to grow and blossom, so do people.

8. Drawing with crayons is still one of the best hobbies you can have in life.

9. Mom wrote me some pretty darn good talks.

10. Don't do rotten things to your friends just to fit in with "the crowd."

11. People make mistakes. Jesus taught us to love them anyway.

12. Pioneer children sang as they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked . . .

13. Sharing time is fun.

14. There is a time to sing and to play, and there is also a time to be reverent.

15. Say please and thank you often.

16. "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" is pretty good exercise.

17. I am a child of God.

Why It Matters

On Friday, a federal judge overturned Utah's Proposition 3, passed in 2004, which defined marriage, under Utah state law, as a contract entered into between only a man and a woman. I just read in tonight's paper that, in the three days since, more than 700 gay marriages have already taken place across the state.

This is all happening so fast—much faster than I was prepared for. I didn't think we'd have to cross that bridge here in Utah for a few more years at the earliest.

And yet, here we are. "Tomorrow" has come. Some rejoice in that fact. I have been somewhat surprised to see more than a few of my LDS friends join in their jubilation.

As a result, many conversations have taken place, some more heated than others, over the past few days. Personally, I have engaged in discussions about the issue with family, friends, and even a few mere acquaintances, both in person and on Facebook discussion boards.

Earlier today, one friend posted a link on my wall that read, in part:

"Should a particular religion’s faith document (referencing the Proclamation on the Family) become law for everyone? Is the Bible the Constitution? Churches can still believe and practice what they want and not impose those beliefs on secular law. And do you really want to make legal or illegal everything the Bible endorses or opposes? Do you really want to go there?"

To paraphrase: "Why do you care, Angry White Loner, whether a man chooses to marry a man or a woman chooses to marry a woman? It's all about love, not hate. What does it matter to you whom another person chooses to love? How dare you impose your hateful, ignorant, outdated, homophobic religious beliefs on society."

I've pondered a great deal over both these questions and the possible answers over the course of the weekend. (Having strep throat tends to leave you with a lot of time to think about a lot of things.) And I've come up with two main points to sum up why this issue does matter a great deal to me personally and why it should matter to us all.

1) Two months ago, in the October 2013 general conference of the Church, Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said:

"Each day is a day of decision, and our decisions determine our destiny. One day each of us will stand before the Lord in judgment. We will each have a personal interview with Jesus Christ. We will account for decisions that we made about our bodies, our spiritual attributes, and how we honored God’s pattern for marriage and family" (emphasis added).

Though the world may not care what I, personally, believe on the matter, and may discount my opinion as someone unqualified to opine, the Lord cares what each and every one of us thinks on the matter and whom or what ideals we choose to follow in this lifetime. The day will come when we will have to account for it, face to face. And His opinion of us matters. He will want to know where and with whom we stood when all of this was going on.

2) Because of my nieces and nephews, it matters. A lot.

That thought occurred to me yesterday while I got to spend some time with them (at arm's length, of course, because I'm currently under the weather) at our bi-monthly family dinner.

I care for all nine of them a great deal. Hopefully, more will join us in the next few years. If and when I have kids, I will feel the same way about them, too. Next to their parents, grandparents, siblings, and other aunts/uncles, I care for them more than anyone else on this Earth. I want them to be happy and healthy and to succeed and grow and to live up to their potential. I also worry about what the future may bring them, though it is with cautious optimism. I hear a lot of optimism from President Monson and the other General Authorities when they speak.

As a family, collectively speaking, we are teaching these children that "marriage between a man and a woman is essential to His eternal plan" and that "children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother." Following this teaching is the only pathway to true, lasting happiness and a fullness of joy, both in this life and in the eternities. The God we believe in is a God of pure, perfect love, not of hate, and one who wants us to return to live with Him—though we have to do our part.

Already, however, the world is telling these children, either directly or indirectly, that this doctrine, as it is found in the Proclamation and in the mouths of 15 modern-day prophets, seers, and revelators, is outdated, stupid, wrong, changeable, hateful, discriminatory, bigoted, and other, worse adjectives that I won't mention here.

I cringe at the thought of this happening, though I know, sadly, one day, it will. I want to protect them from these detractors who are, in reality, the hateful, spiteful ones. I will fight with everything I possess to prevent it from happening. I will try to be the best example I can be of someone who honors God's pattern for marriage and family. Never, however, will I resort to bullying, fear mongering, unkindness, shunning, or any other tactic unbecoming of a follower of Christ to do so.

On a different friend's wall, I read this other thought:

“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”
― Augustine of Hippo

Family and friends, the wheat is being sifted from the tares—even within the membership of the Church itself—and the five wise virgins are filling their lamps with oil, while the five foolish ones are being "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14). Nevertheless, the way to go is clear, if we will but hold to the rod and "not be deceived" (D&C 52:14) by false prophets, secret combinations, and other wolves in sheep's clothing.

Victim of Circumstance

"I never said I was a victim of circumstance."
 -Billy Joel

Sometimes, you just end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's an altogether unavoidable fact of life.

Case in point: On Friday night, I arrived at the theater for our weekly improv show a few minutes earlier than I normally do. Upon entering, I discovered that the children's theater group was using our usual stage, the black box, for a Halloween performance that would conclude in plenty of time for us to set things up for our own Halloween performance at 10 p.m. Dressed in my costume as Teddy Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States, I had shaved my usual goatee down to a Teddy-like mustache.

The mustache part is vitally important to the rest of my story.

Because the black box was occupied, I ventured over to and walked into the green room, planning to wait out the end of the show there while my fellow improvisers arrived. Only it wasn't the green room I had become accustomed to, per se. I was confronted by an angry parent and/or chaperone who asked me to leave at once, because the green room was being used, in her words, as a "little girls' dressing room."

Keep in mind that these people had no I idea who I was other than what may have appeared to them to be a creepy guy in a mustache.

Well, obviously, I had no idea that the green room was being used as a little girls' dressing room that evening. After all, no one had posted a sign outside indicating this fact, and it's not like we hadn't used that green room on every other Friday night for the past two years (we, in fact, had).

Incidentally, if you missed the show that followed that night, then you missed seeing what turned out to be the Greatest Halloween Improv Show of All-Time.

Not that I am biased! I guess you had to be there.

It's about Love . . . and Patience

I recently met two friends of Pure Prairie Girl's, a married couple who were high school sweethearts and who have now spent more than a decade together in wedded bliss. Unfortunately, during that same period of time, they have been unable to have children of their own.

Very soon, however, they will have finally come through all of the red tape and are preparing to adopt a baby who will become theirs as soon as he/she is born. They have an agreement with the birth mother and everything. They excitedly spoke of their plans and shared their joy about the at-long-last arrival of their delayed blessing of becoming parents.

It was an enlightening and a sobering experience for the Angry White Loner, who saw the other side of this coin of adoption a few months ago and made a post here on a similar subject on the blog back in May. In a way, this experience brought it all full circle for me.

At about the same time, the AWL finally got around to seeing the movie Prince of Egypt, notorious for Mariah Carey's/Whitney Houston's epic vocal cord battle during the closing credits, which he saw via Netflix. Took ya long enough, you might be thinking. That movie came out something like 15 years ago, didn't it?

Indeed, it did; but that is not the point here. I was reflecting on my experience of meeting this new couple as I watched the film. Moses, of course, was adopted into Egyptian royalty by the pharaoh's daughter. I already knew that part prior to seeing the movie. But another, larger, perhaps more important thought occurred to me:

I'm adopted, too.

Not literally, of course, as I definitely look physically like my father's son, hopefully share my mother's gentle nature, have my paternal grandmother's sense of humor (or so I'm told), etc. But I am adopted in that, according to a patriarchal blessing I received at age 18 and through covenants I have made, I am one with the House of Israel, a member of the tribe of Ephraim. And there are some amazing blessings promised to all those who are, literally or by adoption, of the House of Israel.

I suppose that the prevailing thought I had through all of this is that there is no real or important difference between being someone's literal offspring versus being adopted. The expectant parents I recently met are not going to love their child any less than caring and diligent parents who are able to conceive children through natural means, nor will the children grow to love their parents back with any less love or appreciation. Their many years of waiting, I'm sure, have taught them a good deal about patience and have prepared them for this moment.

The same certainly goes for the courageous young boy who spoke in my ward during yesterday's Primary program about his experience in foster care. There is are loving parents and a home for him, and all other foster kids, as well.

As someone who is both a literal son of God and of earthly "parents kind and dear," I'm grateful to belong to the families to which I belong. I have some pretty great brothers and sisters in them.

And as a credit card advertisement once touted, "Membership has its privileges."