We All Want the Same Things

It's a very common team building exercise. The group gets divided into three or four classifications: giants, trolls, dwarves, and elves or some variant. The rules are simple.  Some races have to run away from you some go after you. The objective is to capture everybody and bring everybody in the same wedge of the playing field. The end result is pretty predictable. After three or so rounds no one wins. And then the group facilitator has everybody huddle up and talk about real life applications. People throw out ideas like "we have to all be unified," or " we all need to know and fully utilize the rules." 

I suppose if a group had a skewed enough dispersion of athletic ability maybe one team might win but it's supposed to be one of those impossible games meant to teach lessons rather than to be won. I remember playing the game at a student government summer retreat. I started running around with everybody else but then in the second round it dawned on me: the group facilitator had said the objective was to have everybody inside the same wedge of the playing field, not necessarily my wedge of the field. I yelled a halt and remarkably people did stop and listened. We all moved into the same wedge because now everyone understood that to win, we needed to stop pretending in trying to fulfill some role and solve the problem right in front of us: just get everybody in the same space. 

Over the past couple of years, I have felt an increasing unease with the way we interact with each other. People get slandered or cut down because they don't believe the right thing or don't profess to think the right way. Some people make a big show out of "unfriending" friends because of differing opinions or thoughts. I've fought that mentality in myself and have never unfriend friends though I know many have unfriended me probably because they assume they know my kind. I'm one of those liberal socialists trying to take away your guns, aborting babies, celebrating same-sex marriages, and taking your hard earned money to feed the tax machine. The sad part about it is there are just as hurtful labels put on the right as well: you're conservative red necks who'd let the whole country go up in a blaze of oil drilling glory while shooting off your automatic rifles from on the backs of the poor and immigrants. 

Let's face it, though, folks. We all want the same thing. We all want to be loved, we all want to feel successful. I think deep down, we all want to make the world safer, better, and more peaceful if not for everybody around us at least certainly for our family and friends. There's a reason why we call people who don't have those ideals sociopaths. They are anti-civilization. 

I don't expect a whole lot will come out of this post but sometimes I feel so helpless. At least this message might reach a few thoughtful people who might give it a moment of reflection before "liking" or leaving the conversation. Because we are facing some earth shattering dilemmas: wars, terrorism, shootings, bombings, freak weather, starvation, droughts, genocide and so much more. There is absolutely no way we can win these exquisitely challenging battles for humanity unless all of the pro social humanity is in the same space, willing to suspend whatever political or ideological roles we feel we are playing for the sake of winning these fights. I challenge everybody reading this to pause an extra second before responding to that feed or posting that meme or unfriending that friend and answer this question for yourself: Will this help us solve the world's problems together? Give it a try. I'd love to hear of experiences good or bad in testing this out.

LDS Church's Stance on Same-sex Couple's Children Membership: Not a punishment nor unique

I know I've missed the 15 minute social media news cycle and all but I thought I'd throw a few thoughts into the cyber mix regarding the recent policy additions to the LDS Church's Handbook 1 anyway. 

I've struggled for years to understand why my faith has been directed to hold homosexuality under so much scrutiny. And I'm afraid I don't have profound explanations for it yet. But here are a few thoughts. 

Given the gravity that my faith gives to sexuality in general--sexual activity outside of marriage ranking just below shedding of innocent blood in the hierarchy of misdeeds--and juxtaposing that against my faith's belief in the extreme importance of family and family-level decision making, I can only imagine what a difficult discussion that must have been among the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that led to the generation of the additional language in the Handbook. 

As soon as I heard about this new policy I instantly thought back to an experience I had 11 years ago when I was privileged to teach a young family about my faith. One of the daughters, the oldest child who was 12 at the time, was eager to be baptized but none of the other family members shared that conviction at the time. The parents made the decision that their daughter would not be baptized. My faith doesn't believe in going against parent's decisions while they have legal guardianship, so their daughter wasn't baptized. That was hard for me because I felt how strongly this child wanted to be baptized. 

I've had other opportunities to teach other individuals in different situations but related in that my faith required them to go through additional steps before they could be authorized for baptism. I taught a gentleman who I grew to love so much who was in a legal partnership. He and his partner of 20 years, a wonderful lady named Cindy, had not been married but were considered legally bound through California state law. Before he could be baptized he had to be interviewed by a mission president and receive authorization from the First Presidency, the highest governing body of my faith. 

I also got to know a wonderful family whose wife and mother had been involved in a polygamous community some years back. She told me some of the additional steps she had to go through in order to be authorized to renew her membership in my faith. It took her some years and working with priesthood leaders. All that time, she participated in my faith's activities and worship services and considered her baptism all the more remarkable having had to go through these additional preparatory steps. 

My last thought is that I recently renewed what my faith calls a temple recommend. The recommend authorizes me to enter our temple buildings that are only accessible to those among my faith who commit to living certain principles the best they can. The recommend interview includes a series of questions to gauge my level of commitment to principles like whether or not I believe in God and certain codes of conduct such as my faith's law of health among others. 

I know some people believe that the LDS faith requires its members to either be 100% "in" or else they're shown the door or at least ostracized by its "true believers." I felt I could honestly answer all the questions asked in that recommend interview, and holding a temple recommend is as good of a sign as any that one is an upstanding member of my faith community. 

Let me tell you some of the questions that interview did not include that some, I'm sure we'll-meaning, individuals must think are included given they're insistence in proclaiming the LDS Church as a hate driven organization. I wasn't asked if I hate gay people. I wasn't asked if I was willing to fund campaigns to take rights away from or refuse services for same-sex couples. And nowhere in that interview was it even mentioned I must be a Republican. 

I know it probably sounds extremely naive for me to say so among the intellectual communities I run in, but I do have faith in a religion that believes it is led by a prophet. And that prophet has a pretty stark responsibility: act as God's mouthpiece on earth and don't vary from what God wants him to say or else God will remove him from said office. I don't understand all the reasons why my faith's prophet has been directed in this way. I won't deny my difficulty in dealing with this new policy. But I love the fact that I can feel like I'm an upstanding member of my faith community while holding opinions that differ from the mainstream "Mormon Culture," on some of these matters that are not a core part of why I choose to continue believing in my faith. 

I'll admit that some individuals in my faith community say things on social media and other places that are sometimes very hurtful. But to label the entire community hateful is a gross inaccuracy. Case in point: I missed that 15 minute social media news cycle because I was chairing a city natural resources and sustainability committee meeting. One can definitely hold progressive views and a LDS faith belief system at the same time.

We're All Immigrants but that Applies to Mormons Double

I realize that there are complex issues at play with immigration, but a lot of the time I can't help but feeling like our Nation's approach to this issue that impacts millions of people in our country in a very intimate way is kind of like how the neighborhood tree house handles its membership.

One lucky kid has a Dad who knows a thing or two about carpentry so he is fortunate to have a tree house built in his backyard. All the neighbor kids realize the potential adventure and, to speak in economic terms, utility, they could gain from hanging out in the tree house, so they timidly ask to be allowed to come up after school. The owner kid determines who he likes and who he won't allow in, causing a scarcity of access, which drives up the neighbor kids' desire to be granted access to the now very cool tree house. But now there's tension in the neighborhood. The "cool kids" who the owner kid invited initially feel very special about their newly found glory. And the kids left out really want to be allowed in. So the kids in the "In Crowd" devise elaborate schemes to keep the kids not authorized to enter the tree house out. One kid suggests they pull up the rope any time they're occupying the space so they could control entry. Others devise tests to determine whether or not one would be found worthy of entry complete with secret codes. One particularly violent kid suggests they start carrying large sticks and sling shots to scare away people trying to sneak up doing so at their great peril because they would be doing so without the assistance of the rope.

Each proposal becomes more elaborate than the last until the kids have developed a series of whistles and hoots to indicate if the coast is clear or if an "illegal climber" is close by. They invest so much time, resources, and thought into protecting their turf that the tree house occupiers gain a very entrenched sense of ownership and a warped sense of why they needed to protect it in the first place. In the end, protecting the tree house becomes a good in and of itself independent of any potential good that keeping the club to an exclusive group might bring. And the protecting kids are far from the realization that letting the kids wanting entry up could bring many additional benefits like more treats, diverse conversation, or more intricate games.

This tale has a predictable end: the carpenter Dad finds out about his son's desire for domination from one of the other kid's Dads; one of the fathers of one of the kids who has scraped her knees and broken an arm trying to climb up the tree while under heavy sling shot fire.  The carpenter Dad grounds his son after having a very serious conversation about sharing, loving others, or at least making room for others to enjoy the same privileges.  And above the screams of "It's not fair!" and "How could you do this to me?!" from his enraged son, the carpenter Dad takes down the treehouse. After the 30th defiant, tear laden declaration for justice, the carpenter Dad quietly states a fact that his son has completely forgotten: "What do you mean it's not fair? You didn't build the treehouse. I did."

We are all so incredibly fortunate to have won the lottery of national origin being born in the United States where even the poorest are rich by comparison to many other country's situations for most citizens. How can we claim ownership of a thing we have done absolutely nothing to deserve? Almost all of us have immigrant ancestors coming to this Nation for a better life or new opportunities. The very existence of the United States is a story of immigration where immigrants came to escape religious persecution or a myriad of other reasons. But for the sake of this post, we'll focus on the strong under current of the desire for religious freedom that brought many of our ancestors to America, particularly converts to the LDS faith who immigrated between 1840-1932 to join the gathering of the early Saints (With the word "Saint" referring to the Latter-Day Saints and not the formal term used by Catholicism) to Zion.

Over that nearly 100-year span, over 90,000 Mormons immigrated to America from across the Atlantic Ocean alone. And among those 90,000 individuals stem the vast majority of today's American LDS members, tying their roots back to European ancestries (http://mormonmigration.lib.byu.edu/about).

Though he had ancestors who could boast five generations of American heritage before him, Joseph Smith's great-grandfather's grandfather immigrated from England in 1638. If Joseph Smith's ancestor hadn't decided to cross the ocean or had been barred from entry into our country, and had Joseph Smith never been in the situation he was in, a situation that could truly only have been experienced in the United States, the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints may have looked very differently and the modern Church today would have been in a different situation.

With gifts that come without us having to work for them, there comes a need for a sense of humility sufficient to lead one to extreme gratitude. I can't claim any right to have earned my place as a white male in the 21st century when medical advances are such that I survived health challenges that had taken the lives of thousands of others before me. But I can be grateful. I didn't deserve to be born to parents seeking graduate degrees which led me to desire higher degrees that have further led me to my comfortable and fulfilling life I live now. But I can be grateful. And I certainly have not earned my place in the United States by any of my own merits; those merits I owe to my courageous ancestors who braved sea voyages to an unknown land. But I can, and must be grateful. And I think it's a natural human tendency that when one is deeply grateful, one tends to be more in-tune with ways of helping others to have the same blessings one enjoys.

I am deeply grateful for my LDS faith. It has given me so many opportunities for growth and learning that I doubt I could have had in any other way. And the very fact that Joseph Smith was born in the United States, the one place on Earth in 1820 where he could test out different doctrines, hear the contests of various religions, pray to determine which Church to join, and, being directed to restore one instead, establish a church with protections backed up by the very foundational documents that created the Nation, is thanks to liberal immigration regulations. For that reason alone, any faithful LDS member who believes the story of the Restoration of the Gospel should be deeply grateful for immigrants.

Now today, more immigration is coming from other directions, but the same principles hold true. Whether we have ancestors who sailed into Plymouth Rock with the Pilgrims in 1620 or parents who crossed the border so that their children could be born in a country that would provide more opportunities, we have that same need for that deep, abiding gratitude that against all odds, we are American citizens; not because of any merits of our own. And realizing this extreme debt of gratitude, we should seek for ways of helping others enjoy the same blessings that we enjoy.

That tree house of opportunity, fortunately has not been torn down in the sense that our country is still alive and thriving, but many, a lot claiming to share my own faith, are passionately seeking for ways of keeping the neighbor kids away from the opportunities the treehouse would provide. And just like the tree house owner's son, we can't cry foul against those interested in our situation, because we didn't build this Nation: we can only be grateful for those who did.

Among the many thousands of immigrants traveling to America, lie the families and individuals that make up our grandparents.

“Thursday, January 18, [1900]. . . The Anchor line steamship ‘Anchoria’ sailed from Glasgow, Scotland, with 37 Saints on board, bound for Utah. The company consisted of 23 emigrating Saints (18 Swiss, 2 Scandinavian, 1 German, 1 British, and 1 Dutch emigrants) and 14 returning Elders. . . The company arrived in New York Feb. 5, all well" (http://mormonmigration.lib.byu.edu/Search/showDetails/db:MM_Europe/t:account/id:3/keywords:1900).

That ship's log could describe many of our own ancestors landing in the New York harbor. The faith I hold dear was founded by a man whose ancestors traveled to that same harbor as an immigrant. For this reason alone the LDS community should be the first to decry the atrocities that are now taking place in our Nation against immigrants: families being torn apart, being forced to work jobs for extreme hours that even those most desirous of work would hesitate to take, or risk deportation, living shorter much less satisfied lives simply because they are the first generation to enter our country instead of the second. I know there are more complicated issues at play, but before I post my passionately felt opinion about the issue, I have sought for the necessary gratitude that my ancestors were among the lucky ones who could come to America and build a new life here without always being nervous when there was a knock on the door. That's why I am, gratefully, a Mormon and Liberal.