Us and Them

While attending BYU in Utah, my wife and I elected to by a mobile home instead of paying rent. It turned out to be a good financial investment as we were able to sell it when I graduated and took my first job in Idaho.

The way LDS congregations (known as “wards”) are set up is by geography. This means that the ward you attend is based on where you live. It may seem strange to some people, but it works. The boundaries are selected based on the number of members in a given area ensuring that the wards don’t get too big or are too small to support the needs of the members.

It just so happened that the mobile home park my wife and I lived in was in a ward with a subdivision of nicer homes of people that were fairly well off. Overall, that didn’t cause many issues, but once in a while, it did.

Here’s an example: One Sunday, a church leader was talking about providing service to those in need. A good idea, right? What bothered me personally, and several others in the meeting, was when he said, “We need to reach out to those people over there in the mobile home park and make sure we are taking care of them.”

I’m certain he meant no harm in the statement, but by saying it that way, he basically created an “Us and Them” situation. And I say that’s not a good thing.

As I read the news, many of the world’s conflicts are caused by people focusing more on what makes them different than what they have in common. Labeling people based on any particular trait that makes them different can overshadow shared commonalities.

That’s not to say everyone has to be the same. Heck, I’ll go as far as to say that it’s a good thing for people to embrace things that make them different—as long as that doesn’t become such a powerful representation that it obliterates the things we all have in common.

What kind of differences am I talking about? It can be skin color. It can be religion. It can be economic situation. It can be marital status. It can be sexual orientation. It can be which sports team you cheer for. And the list goes on and on.

I’ll openly admit that in my life I’ve been one of those who have perpetuated the “Us and Them” situation from time to time, and I’ve learned it wasn’t a good thing.

My first job was at McDonald’s. I worked after school and on the weekends. When I was scheduled to “close,” I couldn’t go home until everything was done. Over time, it was clear to me that the morning crew and the evening crew didn’t like each other very much. The morning crew would often complain about how the evening crew left things a mess from the night before. The evening crew would counter by saying “The morning crew doesn’t have it as bad as we do. They can go home once their shift is over and they don’t have to clean up.”

Then I graduated from high school and had a chance to work in the mornings during the summer. What I found out shocked me. The people in the morning were actually pretty cool. They had to deal with stuff we didn’t at night, like switching over from breakfast to lunch. In the end, I came to realize the morning and evening crews had a lot more in common than not. I felt bad for being one of the outspoken evening crew.

Recently, I was once again confronted with an “Us and Them” situation. I won’t go into details because frankly I’m sure there are several people who are cheesed off at me and I’m hoping they will understand where I’m coming from. What I tried to do is to get them to see they were perpetuating “Us and Them” by focusing on what I consider to be small differences and ignoring the larger commonalities.

In the end, let me make a suggestion: when you find yourself at odds with someone, take a moment and step back to look at the bigger picture. Focus on what you have in common with the other person instead of the differences.

Non-medical vaccinations

Before heading to Mexico to live for two years, I was given several shots. One of them felt like peanut butter being pumped into my hindquarters—chunky, not smooth. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play one on TV, but as I understand it, vaccinations are basically injecting a person with a small amount of whatever disease you’re trying to protect them from.

When I learned about that, I thought it was the dumbest thing ever. Why would you expose someone to a disease you don’t want them to get?

I remember being told that a small amount won’t cause you to get the disease, but instead, it will allow your body to learn how to fight the disease if it encounters it in a big way.

In the LDS church, there is a saying that members should be “in the world, but not of the world.” What does that mean? Well, my take on it is this: members need to exist in society, but should live to a higher standard than society. I think it’s a great idea. Just as there is peer pressure to do bad things, there can also be those who are an example of making good choices.

And here is where I may upset a few people—which won’t be the first time and I doubt will be the last. Sometimes I feel that there are those, and not only of the LDS faith, who focus too much on only part of the phrase “in the world, but not of the world”—that being the latter half.

As a parent of four daughters, three of them teenagers, I understand the desire to keep children out of harm’s way. Yet, if I shelter them too much, I’m doing a different type of harm: they won’t know how to deal with worldly issues if they aren’t exposed to them.

My vaccine metaphor is imperfect. I do not advocate that any parent should give kids drugs, or hand them a magazine of pornography, or swear at them so their children can learn the “bad words.”

But neither do I suggest that parents should never talk to their children about the vices of the world for fear that the children may become curious enough to seek them out.

What I’ve seen firsthand are young adults who leave their parents’ home and cannot interact with people in the “real world.” They’ve never had any exposure to what is out there, “in the world,” and when they are faced with it, they haven’t learned how to deal with it.

And if people can’t interaction with the world, how can that be a positive influence on it?

Restaurants

There was a recent story about how some 150 people left the Mormon church en mass. It gave me a lot to think about. I decided to express my feelings in a short story.

Take from it what you will.

After Jim entered the restaurant, he noticed everyone was looking at him. Their expressions showed different emotions: curiosity, indifference, and distain. Everyone was in either a fancy dress or a tuxedo. He looked down at his T-shirt and blue jeans. They were clean and free of holes or rips, yet still he felt uncomfortable.

He had heard good things about this restaurant. The food was supposed to be excellent. He didn’t realize how they patrons would be dressed.

“Welcome,” the hostess said. She smiled at him. “How many?”

He’d come by himself, which only added to his feeling of awkwardness. The food smelled delicious and his mouth started to water. Still, his growing feeling of uneasiness overrode his desire to eat.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I came to the wrong place.”

He spun and left the restaurant and walked out to the busy street. Everywhere he looked, he saw different restaurants. People were walking up and down the sidewalks, looking at the different places to eat.

Jim saw several people wearing T-shirts and blue jeans going into a restaurant a bit further down the street. He followed after them.

He stepped into the restaurant. No one looked up at him when he came in. There wasn’t a hostess at the door to greet him. He saw that he would have to go up to the counter and place his order and then find a place to sit.

The menu was on the wall lit up with neon lights. Most of the meals listed were offered at the restaurants he’d visited before. Jim walked up to the counter, placed his order and soon was sitting down to eat.

“I’m so glad I left that fancy restaurant across the street,” someone said at a table next to him. “I didn’t like all the way they ran it.”

“Yeah,” another person said. “While most of the people were nice, I felt like some of them judged me because I didn’t wear a tuxedo.”

“And they didn’t have my favorite drink!” yet another person said. “I tried to get them to offer it, but they wouldn’t. They are so close minded.”

Jim looked around the restaurant. In general, people were eating and looked comfortable. His meal was okay, but he thought back to how the food smelled at the nicer restaurant. He wondered how that would have tasted. He considered that as he looked around the restaurant full of people largely ignoring each other and focusing on their own meals.

"Who's at the door?" book review

It's rare for me to read a book in under a day. Honestly, I can't recall the last time I did that--until I read "Who's at the door?" by Dan Harrington.
The subtitle of the book is "A memoir of me and the missionaries"--and that is what it is. It's more than just a one person's dealings with Mormon (LDS) missionaries, it is also a book where Dan explores his own belief system--and why he believes what he does.
This isn't a typical conversion story, but almost a "work in progress" as Dan searches for understanding. He asks questions I'm sure most of us have asked, and then either excepts or struggles when the answers don't fit into his previous beliefs.
While this book has highly spiritual overtones, it is also very funny. Dan has an excellent sense of humor and I found myself laughing more than at any recent movie or TV show in recent memory. He certainly is an excellent writer--and knows how to keep a narrative flowing.
There were surprises throughout the book, which I don't want to spoil, but that got me, as a lifelong member of the LDS church, to ponder.
There is so much more I want to reveal about the book, but I fear in doing so, I will ruin the experience for other readers.
So, who would enjoy this book? Well, it isn't just for Mormons. In fact, I can think of a dozen or so non-Mormon friends I'm going to whom I'm going to recommend this book. Granted, members of the LDS faith, especially those have served missions, will get an extra kick out of the book. There is so much as Mormons we take for granted, and it was refreshing to see our church through Dan's eyes.
I honestly hope two things for Dan. Number 1: that he finds the answers to his questions and lives a happy life. Number 2: That he writes more books--and soon.