Windy Sydney

Today I was blessed (yes, blessed) to come across a thread on PostMormon.org about what we did on the Sabbath... Insanad said what thousands of post-Mormons have felt with extreme ease and humor. I kept thinking to myself, "That is so true."

I share this with her permission, and thank her for letting me use it!!

Sabbath in the Mormon church is Sunday. There's a long history behind the typical Christian reservation of Sunday as the day of rest, but in the Adventist beliefs (I think...) they look to some obscure but actual biblical reference to it being on Saturday. The Mormons believe or are supposed to support the idea that you don't work on the Sabbath, you don't go to the store, and you aren't supposed to engage in sports or other physical activities other than a nice stroll or three hour brawl that is thethe typical block meeting with toddlers.


In Truth, (this is always different than PRACTICE or DOCTRINE, which have little to do with truth)... Sunday is the most stressful day of the week for most devout LDS. It starts early with what's called correlation meetings. These are a way of setting a sort of communist/socialist/cultish arrangement to the upcoming meetings that are to plan the next meetings, for the actual meeting which is Sacrament, Sunday School, and either Primary, Priesthood, Relief Society, Young Womens, Elders Quorum, High Priests, or Young Mens, or a plethora of in between meetings.


If the mom isn't required to go to the correlation meeting she's probably on a list to go to something else like a primary planning session or what have you or the dreaded Librarian job. If they miss out on leadership they get to be a teacher of some sort, i.e. various young kids, various teen age kids, various adults, various women, various men, various geriatric people in eternal sleep mode, newcomers and investigators, newlyweds, etc..


If they don't get the middle management jobs they get to be assistants, like assistant librarian, assistant music coordinator, assistant to the 1st counselor of the assistant to the ward clerk, and on and on. Mundane, redundant, pointless you ask???? WELCOME TO THE MORMON ORG.!!!! In Utah they have people "Called by GOD HIMSELF" to be name tag hander outers. While rest of thethe world is starving , being raped, blowing up and being poisoned by toxic sludge, God is busying himself with sorting out WHO should be the name tag hander outer. There are no small callings, only small minded bishops.


After a planning meeting to plan another meeting, the real meeting time is supposed to start. If your ward starts at 9:00 a.m. and Sacrament is first, it's customary to start getting ready at 7:00 a.m. but the last shoe for the 9th child can't be found till 8:58 and then you still have to get into your Ford Aerostar van and hope to god it starts. After you use your pinto to jump your Ford Aerostar van and get it rolling downhill and on the way to the church, (1/2 block away) you still have to fight 300 other moms in their ford aerostars for a parking spot. Then when you unload the van and carry the shoeless ones into the church across the snowy sludge in parking lot you still have to waddle into thethe chapel.


Luckily they know everyone is always going to be at least 10 minutes late and they have most pointless stuff first so you don't miss anything. Announcements, opening prayer (usually thethe same ol rote thing heard a million times) and a rousing version of an opening hymn, sung inthe slowest blood draining, off key meter you can imagine. You still have time to shuffle into folding chairs thein the florescently lit gymnasium behind the padded chairs in the chapel before the sacrament is blessed and passed.


Don't worry that you didn't get a padded chair. Those are reserved for the old people who get there before 9:00 and for those anal retentive McMormon Martha Stewart types who have clean fresh, matching little McMormon nuggets all smiling and sitting with their matching happy quiet books in tidy little rows and coordinated matching bags of cheerios between them. You can forget about ever getting the right or opportunity to sit on a padded chair. It's just not done.


The sacrament is a sweet little rote prayer set up to celebrate the blood and flesh of none other than Jesus himself. A creepy cannibalistic ritual???? Maybe, but they fool the devout into thinking it will help them have Christ's spirit with them through the week. Really it's just wonder bread broken into little bits by young men who rarely wash their hands (thanks for the visual from ? on the little factory reference to guys passing the sacrament... ewwww). The water is tap water in paper or plastic cups but takes on a sort of chemically taste but helps to wash wonder bread down. Little kids like to take thethe wonder bread bit and roll it around in their little grubby hands and make a grey ball from the glue like bread, and then THEY EAT IT. No wonder coming from these little nose miners.


After the sacrament comes the speeches. These vary from subject to subject but due to thechurch correlation, each ward is supposed to have a little similarity in it's topics, so if you miss one ward, wait till inthe next and you'll hear the same speech.


The first to speak are usually the youth. They read something from the Ensign, Especially For Mormons, or some other approved publication and if they inflect a word or two, that means they really practiced. They rarely look up or give any personality to the talk. It's as if the audience is just too illiterate and stupid to read for themselves. Even if the audience has heard the same emotionally manipulative story a zillion times, they laugh in a sort of mass gratuitous chuckle. It's obligatory but gives the poor sap up front encouragement, but makes him lose his place so he/she will read the same paragraph again, then fumble embarrassed, and eventually finish.


Once a month the hierarchy insists that a group of geriatric old men, devoid of personality and with the same color and consistency of three day old oatmeal, without the raisins to come and drone on to the ward on some pre-approved topic. This is the time to take a cat nap or pinch your baby or something so you can escape for a while. They drone for about 20 minutes and then sit down with a Nameajeezechristnamen and the audience sort of wakes up enmasse.


Then they sing another hymn. or someone sings or plays a violin or flute. Percussion instruments are NOT ALLOWED.


Then another speaker reads to you and eventually it starts to wrap up and the congregation sings another hymn.


The audience is not too tuned into this because most of them are reading their lesson manuals so they can teach their lesson in Primary, YW, RS or whatever or they're wrestling with their kids to try to keep them from carving their names into the pews or making spit wads from the pages of the hymnals.


Then comes the other meetings..... more of the same only more hectic... then if you're lucky and manage to get out of the church by noon, you still have to rush home, get lunch on while everyone is screaming about how hungry they are. Once dinner is wolfed down you still have to clean the kitchen because your "RIGHTEOUS MAN" husband is resting or still in meetings. Then you could try to take a nap but the kids are yelling and bored out of their skulls because they can't watch tv cause the PROPHET told you not to. Unless it's BYU FOOTBALL.


The nap is usually interrupted by your visiting or home teacher if it's the last day of the month. They come in, sit in your little sitting room that has either mauve or green or blue furniture with a piano on one wall, a Thomas Kincaid painting above it (or the one with George Washington kneeling in Valley Forge) and the other walls have pictures of Jesus, "The Proclamation to World" thein faux cherry or oak, and some school portraits of your kids, a little askew because you used cheap nails instead of good hooks. There's a set of matching lamps with crocheted doilies under them on matching oak or faux cherry lamp tables and on the coffee table in front of green, mauve, or blue couch is a display of the church magazines. On the bookcase next to the gratuitous piano is a set of THE WORK AND THE GLORY in color coordinated decension as well as other approved church works. In a little glass case from Wal-Mart or Sams club is a series of resin or ceramic statues of Jesus, the temple, or the ones of the man and woman holding some kids. You MAY NOT DISPLAY ANY OTHER ART IN A TRUE MORMON HOME. If you don't believe me, make an appointment to see a Mormon Bishop and go to his house. If this is NOT the arrangement I'll eat a bug.


After they read you the lesson from the Ensign (church magazine for adults) they ask you to have a family prayer. Your kids begrudgingly gather round and a rote prayer is said and then they are obligated to ask you if there's anything they can do for you or your family. Don't fool yourself into thinking it is actually an invitation for assistance. It's just gratuitous. Nod politely and smile pretty and say, "NO BROTHER/SISTER bla bla, Everything here is just fine, JUST FINE". It doesn't matter if you're on the verge of a nervous breakdown, just had a miscarriage, your marriage is ending, or the home is being foreclosed. THIS IS NOT THE PLACE OR TIME TO ASK FOR HELP.


You're just a notch on a belt so they can go back to their leader and say they've done their home teaching. You have REAL friends and family to rely on when you need help. Usually by 6 p.m. you've been "rode hard and put away wet' and have nothing left for anything remotely resembling tolerance or spirituality. That's when the SUNDAY FIRESIDE starts. If you're not hosting it you are asked to bring a dessert. Pour some melted marshmallows over popcorn and wad them up into balls and bring them on a big plastic plate and call it good. Then you get to crowd into someones basement family room with the faux fire burning and listen to some token person of color or who survived a fire or some other miracle tell their story. It's universally deemed a miracle and their experience is verification that God loves Mormons, and then you eat sugary treats and acidic punch and congratulate each other for being Mormon, and then leave.


If you're lucky you're in bed by 10:00 and get to start the rest of your life for the week.


HEY, I didn't hear anything about CHRIST'S LIFE or his teachings in there!! Oh yeah, that's secondary. THe main thing is that you obeyed, you prayed, and you payed. After that, it's just follow and close your eyes. It'll all be over in about 70 years.