I can remember the first time I saw someone pray. I doubt many people can say that. It was during a sleep over at Crystal Vick's house, my childhood neighbor. I was fascinated. She got to her knees and started with, "Dear Heavenly Father...," and went from there. Crystal's parents actually won the state lottery shortly after that slumber party, and they bought a pool and a new car. I assumed it was directly related to Crystal's faithfulness, so I committed myself to prayer from that point on. I too wanted a pool.
I didn't follow a formal order of prayer in those early days. There was very little gratitude. It was basically just me rattling off a list of things I wanted before I fell asleep. I didn't want to be flat chested, and constantly trying unsuccessfully to stay asleep on my back instead of on my stomach (to encourage breast growth, of course) was really difficult. I asked Him for help with this. My fifth grade teacher had convinced me the ozone layer would be completely depleted by the time I was an adult and we would all be burned to death by UV rays. I asked for God's help with this, too.
I also wanted less chaos in my family. I wanted God to help my Dad with his sobriety. I wanted a giant meteor to land on top of my mom's boyfriend or for The Night Stalker, the serial murderer I overheard adults talking about, to come to my house and kill him. I didn't really understand God's peaceful nature, so I prayed fervently for those things every night. I was all in. I promised that I would never do anything wrong if He could just do those tiny favors for me. It was the first time, but surely not the last, that I'd barter with God, making promises I would eventually break.
I remember watching "The Wizard of Oz" with my Catholic Nanny, and mentioning to her that I had taken the sacrament at Crystal's church one Sunday. "I hope you didn't let your teeth touch it," she said. "It's the body of Christ." Now this may be the exact moment my relationship with religion became complicated while "If I Only Had a Brain" played in the background. The irony is not lost on me.
Up until this point, it was pretty simple. Need something? Pray about it. Want to hang out with your friends on Sunday and get candy and popsicles? Go to Sunday school. I had no idea there were rules, expectations, or varying opinions on religion at all. I was also baffled as to how the church could preserve the body of Christ and repeatedly feed it to parishioners on a weekly basis with paper cups of his blood. Wouldn't they eventually run out? Wasn't anyone else completely grossed out by this?
Symbolism is wasted on children.
My curiosity about religion peeked my senior year in high school when I learned that many of my peers, the ones I actually respected and looked up to, were Mormon. I was curious as to why they all seemed a little more mature than most, and why they had standards when most teenagers had none. To put it simply, they just seemed good. I wanted to be good, too. I also wanted to feel like I was part of something that would give me direction. Unlike most teenagers, I actually wanted to be told what to do with my life. It's much easier than having to figure it out for yourself. I craved structure. I was sort of a missionary's dream come true, and that's how I joined the Mormon church in a nut shell. I believed in most of the core values, and I was told the things I didn't understand would eventually make sense to me. I was assured I would gain a testimony of what I doubted, unless of course I wasn't deserving of such affirmation, in which case I wouldn't receive an answer to those questions and it would be my fault. See how that works?
But ten years later, the doubts I had only intensified. I was sick of what I felt were flimsy explanations for church history and certain doctrine. Without specifically picking the church apart, let's just say I started to understand how Dorothy must have felt in Oz.
She didn't really appreciate Aunt Em and Uncle Henry and she wanted the hell out of Kansas. Dorothy didn't know what she had, and she assumed everything was better over the rainbow. So she willed that tornado to drop her in the middle of Munchkinland.
It was great for a while. Colorful. Cheerful. Welcoming. Being there made her feel taller. (Munchkin humor.) She made new friends in the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man. She was told if she stayed on the yellow brick road, all would be well. But after a while she started noticing injustices and hypocrisy in Oz , and that’s what lit a small fire under her ruby slippers. She started to notice things about the munchkins she had ignored before. Many of them never questioned the rules of Munchkinland because they were told, "When The Great and Powerful Oz has spoken, the debate is over." And if you live there, you sure as hell better not divert from the norm too much. Glinda forbid one of those munchkins had a child that didn't fit the bill. They were thrown off the witch’s tower, if they didn't jump first.
Very few dared to question The Wizard, but after he gave the Tin Man a fake heart, the Lion a lousy medal, and the Scarecrow a forged diploma....well, Dorothy started to put two and two together.
Dorothy didn't say anything for a while. She didn't want to make waves. She looked around at all the adorable munchkin faces that she loved, and even though she knew some of them were ignoring the Wizard’s feet sticking out from beneath the curtain, she couldn't point out the obvious. She wanted nothing but their happiness. So she didn't tell them that she had pulled back the curtain and seen The Wizard pushing buttons and pulling levers to scare the Ozians into staying in line.
What did she know, anyway? Maybe they were better off for believing in the magic she decided was nothing but parlor tricks. After all, they seemed genuinely happy while she was constantly fighting off flying monkeys and chemical warfare via poppy flowers. Maybe it was for the greater good of Oz that they continued to believe in the Wizard. It gave them hope. It protected them.
Dorothy understood their devotion because she wanted to believe in the Wizard as much as anyone else. When he yelled “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” she wanted to obey. She even went on for a while pretending she still belonged there among the elite in The Emerald City. But she wasn't fooling anyone, least of all herself.
Then writing appeared in the sky. "Surrender Dorothy!" And so she did. She surrendered trying to be something she wasn't for the sake of staying connected. She gave up pretending to believe in so many things she couldn't justify with a clear conscience. She went back to Kansas, and took Toto with her.
I still pray everyday. I'd like to think my prayers have come a long way since I was a child. I try not to ask for much, and instead of praying for the death of my enemies, I pray for their well being. I always pray for those I love, some of whom may not exactly enjoy this blog post. I still believe in being good and doing good, but my definition of good isn't as rigid as it once was. I still have hope that there's a higher power who cares for me and wants me to do my best to be kind, loving, charitable, patient, and all of those things I believe my Mormon friends are trying to be.
I don't regret joining the church and am thankful for the people it has brought into my life and lessons I learned there, but it's no longer an organization I choose to be actively involved in. This decision wasn't made on a whim. It's something I've struggled with, but it's ultimately the best decision for me. It has been isolating but necessary. With that said, I'll support my Mormon family and friends in their involvement because I know it brings them happiness. I respect their dedication to the standards by which they live their lives. They are some of the best people I know. I have no desire to argue or debate with anyone, even though I'll admit to being especially passionate against the church's most recent stance on gay marriage and the children within those families. I know there's really no point in discussing this with anyone who has already made up their mind on the subject. I hope in those instances when heated topics arise, we can respectfully agree to disagree and leave it at that.
It's a weird transition going from claiming to know a plan for happiness, to admitting you're just sort of winging it. But I'm a much happier person being completely honest and authentic. Although I don't claim to have the answers to everything, I think I'm doing an OK job at navigating life now without a handbook. Like Glinda said, "You've always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself."
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