Mythbuster
It’s come to all of us. That feeling that if people really knew what we were thinking, they’d throw eggs at us. Is it worth it to speak up in a church classroom?
Mythbuster
By Jeanne Turner
It wasn’t the silence of a pin drop; and it certainly wasn’t the gentle silence of one good sister handing a tissue to another. But it was silence. I should have known that Joseph Campbell and Joseph Smith don’t belong at the same Relief Society meeting.
Well, I did know it, but the Gnome of the Moral Imperative had nudged me that day.
“Tell them about myth,” the Gnome prompted.
“I can’t do that,” I hissed back. “Say the word ‘myth’ in this place, and you might as well be a yodeler in avalanche season.”
“They’re getting it wrong.”
“That’s not true. We all need a myth. Awareness of the myth only threatens our construct of reality. It works because it’s invisible.”
“Do you have a testimony or not?” the Gnome persisted.
Drat. I did have a testimony—a lumpy, misshapen, Mr.-Potatohead-without-cute-accessories testimony, but a testimony all the same. My problem was that it was a testimony about something my Relief Society sisters probably didn’t even know existed.
“Noah, Lehi, and Abinadi did not fear to speak out,” the Gnome chided.
My hand—the weak hand which had made only 1,000 loaves of bread rather than the requisite 10,000; the hand which had changed diapers for a mere two children instead of the whole host of Israel; the rationalizing hand which had spent more time typing than serving in a soup kitchen—yea, my weak and small hand rose high enough to catch the teacher’s eye. It looked pathetic, even as a light on a hill looks pathetic when surrounded by suburban glow.
Then, like Moses with his speech impediment, my stupid mouth opened—only I had no Aaron to translate my words.
I told the sisters how grateful I was for Joseph Smith, how possibly his biggest sacrifice was to give up his identity. The real Joseph had issues (some that I was not about to bring up in Relief Society no matter how many Gnomes whacked me), and he wasn’t perfect. The way I could sustain him as our first prophet was to separate the myth from the man and let him have his own life—warts and all—and not make him be the “Praise to the Man” only.
The silence, the shuffling of feet, the “yes, wells,” and then the recovery as we moved on to real testimonies. Nice save on the part of the teacher. Through the patience exercised by the sisters, and in spite of me, a good lesson was had by all.
Only later, as I sat in the foyer with a sulky Sunbeam on my lap, did someone come up to me. I didn’t even know her name. Like me, she was not part of the core ward. I was student, and she was military—in other words, we wouldn’t be there for the next four generations.
“I wanted to say thanks,” she said. “I had been feeling exactly what you said, but I didn’t know the right words. Can you tell me more?”
For half an hour we talked about myth, about stories, and how we all need the right sort of things to believe in, even if they didn’t actually happen that way. She said she felt better about continuing on in church; she had been wondering and worrying.
And that was it; we didn’t become best friends; I don’t think we even talked again. In fact, she moved soon afterward with the military.
I don’t know where the Spirit was that day, but I do know that there was a smug little Gnome poking me in the bewildered gut saying, “I told you so.”
This essay was originally published in issue 151 of Sunstone.
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November 11th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I like this story of inspiration guiding the author’s comments. I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago in Fast and Testimony meeting, where I felt inspired to speak up, and I did. It is a sweet feeling to know you’ve been guided by the Spirit.
I have to say, though, that I find wording like “dialect of Tuna Casserole” and “more time typing than tole painting” to be kind of condescending. I just got back from Enrichment. I am Not Crafty. But I love and honor the women who are, who express their creativity through vinyl sayings or and glue gunned wreaths. I’m grateful they share their talents with me. And they bring me casserole, sometimes tuna, when I need it.
I don’t think we should privilege creation by casserole over creation of letters; I wish there weren’t a scrapbooking divide. To be honest, I sometimes belittle scrapbooking, but that’s only because I stink at it and feel threatened by rows of perfect pages, not because it’s really any less valuable than the things I create. When I find myself guilty of the same condescension, I need to take a step back and see the women who love to do what I’m not good at with more charity.
I realize that’s not the essence of the essay. But I had to stick up for the good crafty women, like the one who taught me how to make a perfect pillowcase with French seams tonight. She promised to help me anytime I wanted to go over to her house. And I am grateful she lets me learn from her. I think sometimes she learns from me, too.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Emily. You’re absolutely right that sometimes our writing reveals things about us that we aren’t aware of. From my interactions with this author, I’m pretty sure that smugness or condescension isn’t a big part of her personality. But your point is valid, and I’d like to thank you for couching it so kindly.
One of the great things about the Internet is the repentance process. I’ll give your observations to the author and see if she wants to do a little revision. Perhaps she’ll be a little more self aware after this. However, I do also want to point out that there’s a great deal of self-effacement going on in the essay. Like the people who author it, writing is often complicated.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
No, no, don’t revise that paragraph, it’s funny, descriptive, cute! It epitomizes the whole essay. I don’t see it as trying to put others down, not at all. It simply states that we’re all different. We may feel that the ones who scrapbook or have all the children are the most valiant, but at times the “gnome” will speak to all of us.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Posted here:
http://www.allbeliefs.com/showthread.php?p=121303#post121303
November 12th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Writing is narrow: it’s only one scene from her life, and so she chose the details and wording that best reflected that particular scene, in which she was dithering over whether to speak up and add her very different, yet still valid perspective in a setting where the women might not appreciate it. I do get that. And it’s fun, snappy writing. I just wanted her to acknowledge the validity of the speakers of the Tuna Casserole dialect, I guess. Who knows? Maybe one of them needed what she had to say too, but was afraid that she didn’t speak Scholar well enough to articulate her gratitude.