IN WHICH DAVEY GOES PUBLIC ABOUT SOME HERETOFORE PRIVATE THINGS (OR, IN OTHER WORDS, IN WHICH HE BEARS--BARES?--HIS TESTIMONY): Its one thing for me to say, Heres how I feel. Its another thing for me to say, You should, too. - Ally Isom, Senior Manager of Public Affairs with the LDS Church This--articulated in todays RadioWest broadcast, in which host Doug Fabrizio successfully managed to expand a paragraphs worth of PR statement into one of the most fascinating hours of radio Ive ever heard--is the primary reason why I never served a mission. For those less familiar with Mormonism, serving a full-time, two-year mission is essentially a foregone conclusion for a young man, one of the most significant in an ongoing series of significant life events mapped out for and expected of us from the time were old enough to graduate from onesies to button-down Sunday shirts. Every tribe has their coming-of-age rituals, and, for nineteen-(now eighteen-)year-old Mormon boys, this is ours. For years, I successfully maneuvered my way down the path of a promising Future Missionary. I was a well-behaved child in primary, reverently folding my arms and raising my hand to speak. My Future Missionary Self (as played by my brother, seven years my senior) even made its way into the primary program, an annual theatrical sacrament meeting extravaganza orchestrated by my Primary President mother, which involved children singing and reading statements printed by their teachers over the pulpit--and, in this case, simulated time travel (these programs also notably marked my career debut as a performing artist). At eight, I was baptized in the basement of the Mormon tabernacle in Salt Lake City, a structure in which my pioneer ancestors had gathered together two hundred years prior, back when Utah was a territory and not a state, a refuge for those Mormon mavericks who fled the Union to build their own peculiar, polygamous socialist utopia for the Saints. The list goes on. When I turned twelve, I was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic priesthood. I served as deacons quorum president, then as teachers quorum president, as a seminary class president for a semester my senior year of high school, and as first assistant to the bishop in our priests quorum. Despite a disdain for camping cultivated from a combination of altitude sickness and Boy Scouts urinating in our Top Ramen (a topic for another post), I received my Eagle Scout award as a member of my ward troop, Troop 736. I graduated from high school and was accepted into Brigham Young University, where I enrolled my first semester in a missionary preparation course taught by Randy Bott, then known as the most popular professor in the world according to RateMyProfessor, now known as an outspoken racist and church PR nightmare (also retired). I began attending a local singles ward, where the two elders quorums were split into pre- and post-missionary males. A full-time, two year LDS mission was the next logical step. There was only one thing that could stop me. God. For eighteen years, Id expected to proselytize for the Lord, to go door to door spreading the gospel, preaching the good word. I had a desire to serve (or, at the very least, I had a desire for the desire, which often seemed to amount to the same thing), but the past year had been a difficult one for me. I found myself at a crossroads, where the two halves of my self had suffered a violent, head-on collision, and they were now staggering about, dizzied, trying to pick up the pieces and figure out which path to take going forward. Let me back up. For eighteen years, Id been a model Mormon young man, but, while my peers got up in fast and testimony meeting to declare they knew the Church was true, I never could. I always hoped, I often suspected, and mostly I just lived my life with the faith and conviction that it was, but still I harbored doubts and questions, I harbored physical, human, and laughably prosaic appetites I still didnt dare even utter, I harbored an inadequacy and a sometimes debilitating depression that I was too afraid to tell anyone about for fear I would be perceived as weak, or worse--sinful. Just months before my high school graduation, all of these elements, coupled with a sense of impending doom and a fear of both the unknown and the inevitable, came crashing together to create a perfect storm. Years of shame and sorrow and fear led to a suicide attempt, the first aberration on an otherwise perfect record. I came up against the abyss, I stared into it and it stared, chillingly, back into me. Suddenly, death was real, and not a free pass into an eternity of blissing out with God and Jesus, and suddenly my depression wasnt something I could hide any longer. And, just as suddenly, in an instant, my life was no longer something I was willing to live for other people. I went to counseling and was prescribed medication; the depression continues to come and go (mostly go), but the results have been irreparable. Im eternally grateful. While I continued down the tried and true trajectory, my depression made me question my Future Missionary status. Id seen how the often militaristic mentality and the strict schedule of a missionarys life could be a challenge for people like me, people with questions and concerns, with doubts, with chemical imbalances. Id seen how a mission could transform peoples lives for the better, but Id also seen how, for those who didnt fit naturally into the streamlined system, it could wound others, sometimes for good. I had the desire to serve--or the desire for the desire--but I also feared for my very life. And I still couldnt say I knew the Church was true. And I didnt want to try to persuade others to live a life I wasnt convinced they were meant to live. So, when I prayed about serving, it was a real question, a moment of pouring out my soul to God and making myself vulnerable before Him in a way I never had before. And I got the answer I wasnt expecting, I got it loud and clear, as firm and forceful an answer as ever Id received to a prayer. DONT GO. And thats when I believed, when I believed more than I ever have before or since, that God exists and that He answers prayers. And I was terrified. Because it was expected of me, because I expected it of myself, I wondered, if I didnt serve, if I would ever be accepted by my community again, by my family, by my friends, by my ward. I wondered if I would ever find someone who could love me, since Return Missionary was always at the top of the qualifications for Eligible Mormon Bachelorhood. But I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it. Finally, I had a testimony, but not of missionary work. I didnt want to go tell others how to live their lives. I wanted to find other ways to love and to serve. I told my bishop about my experience. He suggested I ask again until I got the expected answer, that maybe I was mistaking my own wishes for Gods wishes, but I knew that if that wasnt God Id heard, then Id never heard God, and probably shouldnt be bearing testimony of Him. I asked my bishop if hed asked God about it. He hadnt. I decided to talk to my bishop less and my God more. For the past seven years, Ive lived with that decision. Sometimes it makes me feel like an outsider in my church, where, when I attend elders quorum, I hear others speak of their experiences as missionaries, and I hope no one ever asks me about mine. Ive rarely, if ever, told this story, because I still feel a sense of shame for not having, in some sense, lived up to the apparent promise of my youth. Ive become timid, rather than tenacious, and Ive found myself constructing arguments and defending others more than bearing my own testimony. Ive gone from sharing things in person to sharing them electronically to Liking them electronically, generally finding the most passive, peaceable, and uncontroversial methods at my disposal for professing my convictions. No more. I still dont know much. I cant say that I know God exists, but I certainly hope He does. But there is one thing I know. I know that godliness exists, and, at least for me, thats enough. I believe in truth and beauty. I believe in creation, in community, in compassion. I believe in living, learning, listening, loving, in drinking deeply of each breath with which weve been so bounteously blessed. I still dont feel comfortable telling people what they should or shouldnt feel, but this is how I feel, and, while recent events in my community have shaken my world, theyve somehow served to strengthen my faith in what I really believe matters, and thats people. I believe more than ever in creating spaces for people to ask questions, both publicly and privately, and to speak their piece (or peace, as I often see it written, an unintentional aphorism I maybe prefer). Im a big believer in Matthew 7:1. I optimistically cling to the hope that my generosity in judging others will be reflected back on me, and I try to model my approach on Jesus, who always had a cutting remark for institutions, traditions, and those in a position of power, while surrounding himself with self-acknowledged sinners. And, for perhaps the first time, I finally feel called to be a missionary, to proclaim my beliefs from the rooftops--or at least on my Facebook wall. Im resolving now to be more open, more transparent, more honest, more vulnerable, more present in every interaction, to spend less time worrying about what others think of me and whether or not I fit into my community and more time creating and sharing. The God I read about is kind and charitable, but Hes also many other things--strong and mysterious, a God of wonders, not a God for polite company. In short, I wish to be less bashful and more bold, to allow myself to be led by the Spirit and to always question myself if I think I know beforehand the things which I should do. So, while theres still a great deal I dont know and am content never to know, there is a great deal more that I believe. Ill conclude with a passage from THE PLAGUE, by Albert Camus, a book from a French existentialist and atheist that I think of nearly every day since I read it at BYU, a book thats served as scripture in my life. Since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightnt it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes toward the heaven where He sits in silence? Tarrou nodded. Yes. But your victories will never be lasting; thats all. Rieuxs face darkened. Yes, I know that. But its no reason for giving up the struggle. No reason, I agree. Only, I now can picture what this plague must mean for you. Yes. A never ending defeat. Tarrou stared at the doctor for a moment, then turned and tramped heavily towards the door. Rieux followed him and was almost at his side when Tarrou, who was staring at the floor, suddenly said: Who taught you all this, doctor? The reply came promptly. Suffering.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 00:19:20 +0000
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