Are We Not All Left-Handed?

All the jokes about 10 types of people aside, looking at the human species as a whole it's fairly obvious, even to the untrained observer, that there are fundamentally two types of people. For the sake of our discussion here, we will assign these types random variables: let's call them Type X and Type Y. (Some people claim there's a third type, who are biologically X but consider themselves Y, or vice versa, but we'll dismiss those claims offhand: these so-called "third types" are simply suffering from X/Y confusion.)

Biology affirms this simple division into Type X and Type Y on every level, from basic daily functions to certain cognitive, linguistic, and personality correlates of the divide. For example, Type X individuals tend to be more creative, and use both sides of the brain better, while Type Y individuals tend to rely more on the left side of the brain, home of logical, analytical thinking. Other differences are too numerous to list here, but, all in all, they affirm the unique natures of Types X and Y, and, moreover, how those types are different, distinctive, and complementary. It therefore follows that belonging to one of these types must be an essential pre-mortal characteristic, part of an individual's divine nature and destiny: God created us in his image, right-handed and left-handed.

Since the fall, human society has misinterpreted the true relationship between left-handers and right-handers, with the latter type unquestionably privileged: they have held all the power, made all the decisions, and designed all the manual implements, while left-handers have, for the most part, remained marginalized and powerless. Parents have actively hoped not to bear left-handed children, and this poor Type X has been seen as inherently less valuable or righteous, even in Christian societies. The Bible, for instance, focuses primarily on right-handed characters, consistently affirming God's love for and approval of them, whereas left-handed characters appear only infrequently and, as often as not, cast in a negative light. Through the ages, and across cultures, left-handed individuals have been closely associated with witchcraft and the devil, and there are instances of these individuals being burned at the stake simply due to the bad luck of having been born left-handed. These historical biases towards right-handed remain encoded in ordinary language, and even though we may strive to make our modern language use more sensitive and less handist, we may not even be aware of the histories of words like 'sinister' or 'gauche.'

In today's church, of course, we do not condone this cultural and historical baggage of the X/Y divide, but just the same, we do not condone entirely erasing the divide. The modern movements which claim that the virtue of equality requires a homogenization of all relationships are misguided. In the worldly philosophies of the equality of handedness, which encourages left-handers to abandon their traditional roles of sitting around helplessly and pursue such traditional right-handed pursuits as using scissors or running for president, our society has only found confusion, unhappiness, and the breakdown of all our most important institutions, like homogeneity of desk orientation in elementary school classrooms. Left-handers are equal, but they must stay separate.

Some argue that this emphasis on handed roles in the Church leads to functional inequity between the types, using as evidence the fact that the vast majority of Church leaders are right-handed, or that the Church has not only not repudiated scriptures like Matthew 25:33, which support the traditional association of right with righteousness and left with wickedness, but also incorporated the symbolism of these scriptures into sacred gospel ordinances, namely taking the sacrament. Those who argue this way are on the road to apostasy. Right-handers don't run the church just because of millennia of cultural and historical bias against left-handers, or because they are inherently more righteous or more beloved of God, despite what the scriptures seem to suggest, but because they are actually less righteous. Left-handers are not just equal to right-handers, they are superior! Left-handers can do what right-handers can never do, not in all eternity: their sacred ability to write Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, without getting their hands smudged with ink, is the greatest of all divine missions, a sacred stewardship that right-handers could never hope to aspire to. A proper understanding of the role of the left-handers, and the nobility to be found within it, will bring peace and purpose to the lives of all those who embrace it.

(Amen.)

Don't Cha Wish Your Visiting Teaching Supervisor Was Hot Like Me?

I am my ward's visiting teaching supervisor, or at least was, until the bishop got so sick and tired of me lobbying for another teaching calling that I was called back! back by popular demand! into Sunday School. (Okay, so that's not exactly how it went down, but close, at least in that I was whiny.) In any case, in my very short tenure as visiting teaching supervisor I strove mightily to have my calling and release made sure, mostly by sending out very strange, very snarky emails each month asking companionships for their reports. Last month I titled my email "it's that time of the month again!" and threatened to release my hormonal rage on any companionships that didn't report quickly, and so you can imagine the pressure I felt this month: electronic PMS threats are a pretty high attention-getting bar to clear.

Pressure? No problem. Behold the (entire) text of this month's email:

Very critical to the life of a ward
Integral, too, to the plan of the Lord:
Sisters in spirit, sisters in love
In serving each other we serve Him up above.
Talking and teaching and getting to know
Is a time for all to learn and to grow.
No one should slack and no one should shirk
God has called us to this holy work.

Time for the straight talk, time for the truth
Even if saying it's somewhat uncouth:
A visit a month can be asking a ton
Church-assigned friendships are never much fun.
Hell if I learn and hell if I grow
I'm bonding instead with the one down below.
Now that you're listening, I proffer my plea:
Get me your numbers, A.S.A.P.!

I'll leave the question of which stanza to agree with as an exercise for the reader--after you've reported your home and visiting teaching statistics, that is.

Vote Yes on No

(Or is it Vote No on Yes? I can never remember.)

Since it's been almost a year since I posted anything snarktastic about recent Mormon happenings, and since, as a (now official!) resident of California, I have seen, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted nothing but Prop8aganda for the last few months, I feel I should say this: I'm listening, LDS Newsroom, when you tell me that "traditional marriage is essential to society as a whole", and I've decided to take you seriously--we should restrict marriage to the way it has always been. Of course!  That's why I won't be dating anymore: instead, my parents will arrange a match for me.  I'll also, of course, quit school and move back into my parents' house to practice the housewifely arts and add to my hope chest until someone takes me off the shelf. 

That's cool with you, right, parents?  Dad, we can talk dowry amounts over Christmas, and Mom, I know you've been dying for this for years, but no calling up that weird kid George from elementary school who you thought was so cute, okay?

Who's on Romney's Side, Who?

Now that Mitt has won a few states, I feel slightly less guilty about doing a little bit of gentle (I hope) teasing, in the form of a parody I wrote back in September. (Caution: some references may be so four months ago.)

(To the tune of "Who's on the Lord's Side, Who")

1. The Christian Right declares,
"Mormons are not like us,
With special underwear
And their strange married Jesus.

They believe they will be gods;
they have an extra book
They're all a bunch of frauds
Not worth a second look."

Chorus:
Who'll vote for Romney, who?
Iowa's the place to show,
From the primaries we'll know:
Who'll vote for Romney, who?

2. The godless Dems eschew
Those who put trust in Him
Especially if their views
Change on a weekly whim.

They say he flops and flips
On abortion and the gays.
His centrist mindset slips;
He takes up right-wing ways.

Chorus

3. The liberal media laughs
(NYT's loud and shrill)
At his embarrassing gaffes:
"Small varmints, if you will."

From his favorite sci-fi read,
To his tasteless Mormon jokes
And Castro's lines gloried,
Sometimes the guv just chokes.

Chorus

4. In college he sold stock
And spent two years in France
Then entered--it's no shock--
the world of high finance.

The average Joe cannot
connect with our dear Mitt
From a squash court to a yacht,
He's got a rich man's kit.

Chorus

5. The Lord's own people choose
The Lord's own candidate.
We love his Mo values
There's no need for debate.

With cash and checks and coin,
With one heart and one mind,
We're girding up our loins
5 million strong combined.

Final Chorus:
We'll vote for Romney, we.
Utah to Mitt will go
From Primary we've known:
We'll vote for Romney, that's who!

Grad Students Who Know

with apologies to Julie B. Beck

Grad Students Who Know Write Papers

Grad students who know write papers. While there are those in the world who decry the old values of "publish or perish," in the culture of graduate school good students still believe in writing papers, preferably as many as possible. The wisest advisers teach that first year graduate students should not postpone writing papers, and that the requirement for righteous graduate students to multiply and replenish the library remains in force. There is academic power and influence in writing.

Grad Students Who Know Honor Academic Obligations and Commitments

Grad students who know honor their academic obligations and commitments. I have visited some of the most prestigious universities on earth, where grad students fulfill all their responsibilities, despite walking for miles or using sketchy public transportation. They drag themselves onto campus no matter how little sleep they got the night before or how unfinished their course projects are. These grad students know they are going to classes and seminars, where free food might be offered. They know if they are not going to class, they are not impressing their professorial colleagues, and, also, they might go hungry.

Grad Students Who Know are Studiers

Grad students who know are studiers. This is their special assignment and role within the plan of a university. To study means to observe, analyze, contemplate, or learn about. Another word for studying is procrastinating. Procrastinating includes blogging, talking to friends, and, sometimes, in times of greatest stress, washing clothes and dishes, scrubbing floors and toilets, and keeping an orderly apartment. Studying grad students are knowledgeable, but all their education will avail them nothing if they do not have the skills to procrastinate. Grad students should be the best procrastinators in the world.

Grad Students Who Know Do Less

Grad students who know do less. During the last few weeks of the semester, they permit less of what will not bear good fruit academically. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less social activity, less leisure reading, and less time devoted to the basics of hygiene, nutrition, and exercise. Grad students who know are willing to live on less so they can spend more time with their homework: more time thinking, more time reading, more time writing, more time talking to their adviser. These grad students choose carefully, and do not try to choose having a life outside of academia. Their goal is to get their PhDs, so one day they can prepare a rising generation of grad students who will take their pet theories into the entire field. That is influence; that is power.

It is my sincere hope that we all, in these last days of the semester, can strive to become graduate students who know, and I testify that the dean will reward us for doing so.

The Mormon Boys

An updated folk song*

Chorus:
Come girls, come, and listen to my noise,
Don't you marry the Mormon boys.
For if you do, your fortune it will be
Jello molds and babies are all you'll see.

When they come a-courting, this is what they'll wear:
A white shirt and tie and side-parted hair.
And when they come a courtin', I'll tell you what they'll say:
"Come on, Sister, we can't go out until we pray."

They will lead you out of the singles ward,
And marry you in the eyes of the Lord.
And before that wedding you can only embrace,
For that's the way of the Mormon race.

Your reception'll be in the cultural hall,
And temple pictures will hang on your wall.
You'll put Enrichment-made crafts on your door,
And worry all day 'bout the cleanness of your floor.

Root beer is root beer any way you mix it,
A Mormon's a Mormon any way you fix it.
When other good folks have all gone to bed,
The Mormon's awake reading scriptures instead!





*This parody is loosely based on the versions found here, here, here, and here.

Laid For Your Faith

My ward recently, as all good singles wards must, held a chastity lesson. This was no ordinary chastity lesson, either--it was a special two-hour, everybody-all-together, question-and-answer chastity extravaganza.

(I told my dad this and he laughed out loud. "I hope they make a big deal out of it," he said, "as that's the closest you're going to get." I'd like to think that was a plural you.)

The lesson, in contrast to many of my more awkward chastity lectures at BYU (I remember, as a freshman, leaning over to my friends sitting next to me and wondering what on earth "Levi loving" was, and why my bishop was so against it), was intelligent, articulate, and refreshingly specific, though, frankly, I could have used a little less repetition of the word "probe" in close proximity to the word "genitals." But, you know, maybe that's just me.

As we were setting up the chairs for the lesson, the first counselor in the bishopric told us to pass out hymnbooks for our opening hymn. "Will we sing a special chastity song?" my friend joked.

The counselor considered for a moment: "If you can write a chastity hymn before the meeting starts, we'll sing it."

My mind instantly started racing with possibilities, but, unfortunately, the chairs were set up and the meeting began before I could figure out how to force lines like "As I have loved you, love one another, but try to avoid probing one another's genitals," and "God is love, but we mean agape and not eros, so, please, keep your hands off each other" into the tunes they were meant for.

Had I been given another ten minutes, though, we could have begun our chastity lesson appropriately:

Onward single Mormons,
Chaste and true and pure.
Bear the cross of virtue;
Abstinence endure.
Sex oral and otherwise,
Petting heavy and light
All these things we do without
In our celibate plight.

Chorus:
Onward single Mormons,
Chaste and true and pure.
Bear the cross of virtue;
Abstinence endure.

It's probably just as well, though, as I already had my hands full during the meeting trying to explain the proceedings to the Indonesian investigator I've been translating/explicating for; justifying an entire church meeting dedicated to the details of celibacy was so hard--"Um, you know we don't usually talk about "passionate kissing" in church, right?"--that I can't imagine what I would have done with an entire hymn dedicated to those same details.

Oh, and our real opening hymn? "How Firm a Foundation." I'm a terrible person, I know, but I snickered.

A Homemade Joke

(some of you have heard this before; I apologize)

Q: What do you call a pair of 19 year old boys who surf the internet at night looking to convert people?

A: Nocturnal e-missionaries.

Who Shall Stand It?

When I was a kid and sometimes hated church because it was boring and I had to wear a skirt, I focused on wresting the scriptures to my own satisfaction: "Sister, if men are that they might have joy, and cookies bring us joy, shouldn't you help us fulfill the measure of our creation by distributing those treats now?"

When I was a teenager and sometimes hated church because it was boring and I had no friends, I took deep breaths and recited the mantra, "It's my church too. It's my church too." Or, when that failed, I comforted myself with faith, hope, and charity: faith that church will, someday, be spiritually uplifting, hope that it will be this week, and charity when it's not.

When I was a college student and sometimes hated church because it was boring and mindless, I brought books and read my way through the Qur'an, the Baghavad Gita, the Apocrypha, and the collected works of St. Augustine, Boethius, and Kierkegaard. Oh, and I started fights about stockpiling nuclear weapons and quoted "This Be the Verse" in Relief Society.

Recently, on the days I hate church because it is boring and everyone asks me to be in charge--of playing the piano in sacrament meeting, of teaching Sunday School, of teaching English class, of teaching free piano lessons to anyone who asks, of conducting the church choir, of translating Relief Society for the mission couple--and then criticizes the way I do these things, I haven't had time to read, meditate, or even persuade others to feed me. I come home exhausted, and, frequently, irritated, mostly from having to bite my tongue as well-meaning members point out to me how fat I've gotten. ("I mean, when you got here you were thin. But now you're looking plump!" "Mmm-hmmm." "Indonesian food must really agree with you!" "Mmm-hmmm." "Yep, you sure are nice and fat now." "Mmm-hmmm.")

But then I had this thought: forget the Second Coming, this is how I'm going to read Malachi now: church is the real refiner's fire. If I can just abide each Sunday as graciously as possible, fulfilling, if not magnifying, my callings, one day I really may become a pure metal, kind and helpful on the inside as well as the out. One day, with enough practice at church, I really may do my duty with a heart full of song, instead of a heart full of grumbling at everyone for disagreeing with my decision to change the words of a hymn from "thee" to "you" when I used it during English class. I hope. That's what all this suffering is for, right?

If not, at least there's this: now, instead of biting my tongue, I hum Handel. A head full of song is almost as good as a heart full of song, and far, far better than a tongue full of teeth marks.