Youthful Recollections – Part One
Note: These are recollections of my spiritual journey from my childhood to about age 16. Hope you enjoy the read.
I must have ended my last life desiring a Sabbatical from religion as in my early life I did everything I could to stay away from church as I found it unbearably boring. I felt fortunate that my parents were not religious at the time and did not drag me to church with them.
My Dad was not religious at all and there was no chance of him attending but perhaps it was partly my fault my mom didn’t attend for there was one time she took me to an LDS sacrament meeting when I was about four. During this meeting they serve small amounts of bread and water to the congregation in remembrance of the body and blood of Christ. Priests break up the bread into very small pieces and then Deacons pass them along on a tray with maybe 40 small pieces on each tray.
I remember that when I saw they were passing out the bread I thought to myself that was great because I was starving at the time. When the tray was passed to my mother, she took a piece and was about to pass it by me to the next guy on the right. Well, I wasn’t going to put up with being passed over and demanded my share. That alone caused a lot of heads to turn in our direction, which I am sure on hindsight was a major embarrassment to my dear mother.
My mother then handed me the tray and I immediately saw that one piece would do nothing to satisfy my appetite so I grabbed everything left on the tray and started shoveling the bounty in my mouth.
This eclipsed my mom’s previous embarrassment as more disapproving heads turned our direction.
As it turned out, that was the one and only time my mother took me to church as a child.
Then when I was about twelve, we moved from Boise to a farming area and lived not far from my sweet but overly religious grandmother. She took it upon herself to get me active in the church. Every Sunday morning, she would just show up at the house to pick me up. Unfortunately, she was such a nice person that I couldn’t say no to her. I don’t think anyone could say no to her.
She would wait for me to get dressed and take me to church.
I was so bored all I did was suffer in silence. The authorities interpreted this as reverence and always complimented me on what a good kid I was and stated that they wished the other rowdy boys were more like me.
After a few weeks of this I smartened up and kept an eye out for my grandmother driving up. As soon as I saw her car approaching, I climbed out the back window and ran into the prune orchard and hid until she was gone.
Then a short time later we moved into a house that was just a few yards away from a Mormon church. My grandmother didn’t pick me up as I didn’t need a ride, but I did feel a little guilty about not going and went once in a while. Once when I was there, the bishop grabbed me and took me in his office.
He sat me down and suggested that since I was now so close to the church that I should attend regularly.
I told him that I did not plan on it as I found church extremely boring.
When I said this he just about choked and incredulously gasped back, “Boring? How can you say that? What is boring?”
“The speeches for one thing,” I said. “They are so boring they put me to sleep.”
“How can you say that?” asked the bishop. “We have wonderful speakers here who give uplifting talks. They are very inspiring to listen to.”
“Not for me,” I said.
“Is there anything else that bores you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “The Hymns are boring beyond belief. They are almost painful, to listen to.”
The bishop really gasped at this statement. It was as if he had never heard a comment like this before in his life. “I don’t understand you saying this. Our hymns are wonderful. I love to listen to them.”
“Well, I enjoy listening to some good rock and roll,” I said, “and by comparison the hymns just don’t cut it.”
The poor Bishop seemed devastated with my attitude and I think he saw me as a lost cause.
After my talk with the bishop, I pretty much was determined to stay away from church as much as possible. There was one thing that nagged at me, however, and that was the idea that if you went to church and were good then you would reap a heavenly abode. If not then you would go to the lower regions where who knows what awaits you. I decided that maybe if I went to church once in a while, I would be able to keep my foot in the door just in case.
One time when I attended the bishop grabbed me again and took me in his office.
He said: “I hear you drink and smoke. Is that right?” He seemed a little incredulous since I was only 12 at the time.
I looked back curiously wondering where he had heard this. My parents drank and smoked so I thought that was all right to do. My friends and I would take advantage of cigarettes and beer whenever the opportunity permitted.
“Well, yes, I do sometimes,” I said.
“Well God doesn’t want you to do that,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware of that,” I replied.
Then he explained to me about the Word of Wisdom revelation through Joseph Smith and the harmfulness of the products and implored me to give up those vices.
I thought about it for a few seconds and decided it would be a good idea to give them up and told him I would do so.
(I do not smoke to this day and did not drink again until the church threw me out at age 33.)
He must have been pleased with himself as I’m sure he saw progress was being made.
Then a few weeks later he called me again into his office. He looked at me and said:
“You know that when you are twelve you can be ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood and become a Deacon. You are almost thirteen and you have not been ordained yet. Don’t you think it is about time you took the step?”
I answered back, “If I am ordained and decide I do not like being a deacon can I quit?”
“Oh, no,” the bishop replied, shaking his head. “The priesthood is eternal and you have it forever when you get it.”
“Then I do not want it,” I replied. “I’m not prepared to be a priesthood holder forever at this time.”
The poor Bishop. During the last meeting he saw progress and this one he saw none.
I went to church maybe once every six weeks until I was into my thirteenth year. One Sunday morning I was on my way to my token church visit and I started thinking to myself something like this.
I have to figure out what I am going to do with this going-to-church business. This halfhearted attendance isn’t accomplishing anything. I either need to be like my dad and not go to church and live life entirely by my own will and pleasure or take this church going seriously.
So, what are the plusses and minuses here?
If I don’t go to church I could go to hell, but I could have a good time here and have lots of fun in my life.
If I do go to church, I will be much more restricted by the religious teachings and bored to death in all the meetings I will have to attend. As I thought about it the boredom with the meetings would be the most difficult to handle.
Then I decided to put the whole thing in a wider perspective. If I go to church for a lifetime and behave myself, I will then be entitled to an eternity of heavenly bliss and joy.
If I do not go to church and just pursue a life a pleasure then I risk and eternity of misery.
Logically it comes down to this. Compared to eternity a lifetime is less than an hour or even a minute. Now suppose someone came to me and told me that if I endured boredom for one hour that I could have anything I wanted for the rest of my life. Would I do it? Of course. It would be a no brainer.
Should I then attend church for a short lifetime to have an eternity of heavenly joy? Life is less than a minute by comparison to eternity. Logically, this also seemed like a no brainer. There’s only one problem I told myself. I was just not sure if I was psychologically constituted to handle the boredom of attending all the meetings and of all the churches on the planet, I think the Mormons have more meetings than them all.
I then made a deal with myself. I decided that I would commit myself to full church attendance for six weeks. During this time I would attend every meeting there is to be had no matter how bored I was.
Then after six weeks I would assess the situation as to whether I could handle attending meetings for the rest of my life. If I could handle it then I would become a regular church-goer and assimilate the whole program. If I felt I could not handle it then I would take the same course as my dad did and live a happy-go-lucky life without the burden of church.
I was facing a life altering decision.
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. -Oscar Wilde
June 14, 2008
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