Literally Speaking

*cell phone sings*

“Hello Jessica.”

“Hey Janet. [Insert small talk here, i.e., the humidity, my beloved puppy's health (he's fine, thank you), the last experiment Julia cooked up in the saucepan...] I have some questions for you… about… religion.”

She said it just like that. Like we were opening the floodgates to Hoover Dam.

I wait. She asks me, why, exactly was I no longer a Mormon. What made me stop going to church? When did I stop believing that God had appeared to a fourteen-year-old boy in upstate New York and told him to translate some golden plates and rebuild his kingdom?

Nick asked me the same question after my last post. And so, I’ve decided to clear the air and define my beliefs for everyone, just so there isn’t any confusion when I’m nude on the cover of Vanity Fair.

The largest turn-off for me was the position that the woman was always placed in. I am not a full-fledged, angry 1970s feminist, but I’m pretty damn close. I hated that I was being told to build my future around my future family. My future wasn’t my future, it was my family’s future. I hated that the boys were given special religious powers, including “presiding over the household” and the priesthood, while a woman’s “special power” was baring children. I wanted to be a boy. (And lord knows I tried my hardest my elementary years. You couldn’t force a dress on me if I was tied and gagged.) From a very early age, we are separated and given activities to establish our future roles. And for all that shit about “inner beauty,” we sure had a lot of activities discussing how to apply make-up properly.

“But, Janet, if the Mormon Church is still the only way to God despite this, that there are actually ‘roles’ we have to accept, isn’t it worth the degradation?”

If there is a God that considers women to be inferior, he and I are not friends.

So I struggled with that aspect of Mormonism for a while. From the moment I turned eight, and I was suddenly expected to only participate in “girl activities” and watch in-awe as the boys commandeered the gymnasium to practice basketball until that day when I informed my parents that I wasn’t going to church anymore. I wondered, “how do Mormon women stand it? Do they really all like baking cinnamon rolls and scrapbooking? Going to college only to get married? Bearing far too many children? What gives?” I concluded that they must feel something when they sing or pray that keeps them coming back.

I didn’t feel diddly-squat. When everyone around me was sitting through a testimony meeting and the speaker is commenting on the “strong spirit” present, you know, “There’s such a wonderful spirit here! Can’t you all feel it?” I’d be sitting in my pew thinking, “No…” It was kind of depressing sitting there not feeling elated when you should be feeling elated.

I would later find out that Utah subscribes to more anti-depressants than any other state, most of the depressed being Mormon mothers.

I didn’t agree with their stance on the invasion of Iraq, abortion, homosexuality, political support, interracial marriage, global warming, and basically everything else that appeared on the ballots one point or another.

And because of its sketchy history, it admonishes members to have faith instead of questioning about things “we couldn’t possibly understand.” For a religion that talked about “light” so much, members were ever and always kept in the dark about certain pasts and doctrines.

Don’t even get me started on the book of Mormon.

I mentioned before that I don’t trust organized religions. Mormonism is a multi-millions dollar business. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that God and Allah and Buddah and all the rest of them are fucking billionaires. Religion has caused more war and death and torture than plagues and serial killers and anything else you can think of.

I don’t flourish and thrive when I’m asked to sit tight and fill a mold. I’m just not a religiously-minded person.

“Yeah. Me too.”

???

“I’ve been having a lot of questions about this lately. One of my friends has been disowned because he is gay. And… like you said, I haven’t been feeling anything.”

“Well. There you have it then. I don’t advocate any particular “right” or “wrong” way of living, that’s one of the reasons I left to begin with, I think that spirituality is such a personal reality… but if you’re going to believe in a God at all, believe in one that believes in you and your potential.”

We actually talked much longer and more in-depth about these issues, intertwined with some personal family observations that I won’t be typing here, but that, I think, should answer your questions:

If you see a friendly fellow in a black suit with Book of Mormon in his hand, run like hell.

[Note: This post also appeared here. I'm not lazy. I just thought my literally speaking readers would like to hear the story too. Actually, yes, I am lazy. Moving on.]

Last night my landlord stopped me just before midnight and handed me a package of Mini Milanos, a bag with three peaches and a card. My roommate exclaimed, “How sweet! Who is it from?”

I already had my suspicions, but I opened the card to confirm before answering. I was right! It’s those missionaries again! God damn it! How did they get this address?

Thanks mom.

If I had a daughter who I was afraid was going to hell, I might send church recruits to stalk her too. But I’m telling you it has been but some grinds on my groove and is more than annoying. Leaving my parent’s home meant two things for me: no curfew and no Mormonism. As it turns out, no matter how far you run, the later will always find you.

Not two days after settling in New York City, I received a call from a bishop from the “singles” ward (because when you’re a Mormon, your primary purpose on Earth is marriage. A ward that singles out singles makes “setting up” young members possible without a matchmaker) informing me of all the upcoming activities and meetings. The fact that he even had my number was infuriating, but I knew what my parents had done. They had contacted church headquarters here and requested a force be set up to herd me back to the fold.

As you can imagine, I was pretty angry. I congratulate myself on being able to keep my voice steady while I explained to him that I haven’t considered myself Mormon for almost ten years and would appreciate it if they would refrain from contacting me again. He tried to barter me into attending some events that weren’t “religious at all” and “just for fun,” but I told him very sweetly that I’d rather be hit by a Hummer several times over and ended the call.

While he didn’t personally call me again, several sister missionaries seemed to be laying in wait for me all over the city. I’m pretty positive Mormons have a spy network more efficient than the CIA because they seemed to know which gym I went to, where my college was, where I danced, where I worked, and where my favorite bagel shop is located because THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY I could have coincidentally ran into them that many times. Most New Yorkers haven’t met a Mormon their entire lives. I lost count of how many pamphlets and church books were practically thrown at me, how many times random sister missionaries grabbed and hugged me… pretentious is an understatement.

Mid-way through October (I moved here in August), I begged my parents to call off the guards.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mom said.

“Haven’t you talked to the bishop over here? You gave him my number!”

Mom was silent for a moment. “Well, just in case you decide further down the road that you would like to start attending church again…”

“Mom, believe me. If I ever wanted to go back to church again, which I don’t see happening, I would have no trouble at all contacting them. You don’t understand. It’s gotten bad.”

“They just want to be a part of your life honey,”

“No! No! That’s creepy! Do you know what? I joined Greenpeace yesterday because I felt guilty. I felt guilty because a small forest has been used to make church handouts on my behalf. I feel like they’re watching me all the time…”

“Tell them yourself then.”

I did tell them. I started to tell them to “fuck off” regularly, like I might have done in the beginning, but like the red ants of the Amazon, they were undeterred. In fact, my vulgarity might have strengthened their resolve about me needing Mormon guidance.

I’ve since changed apartments, switched to Crunch (whose more numerous gym locations make me harder to track), gotten another job, changed the number on my cell phone and chopped off six inches of my hair and dyed it black. The run-ins have lessened… a hard-won privilege.

However, last week when my roommate and I were riding the J train to Brooklyn, a woman in a sweater and long dress (they’ve no mercy. It’s the middle of Summer with about 100% humidity) situated herself directly in front of us and spent a good deal of the ride staring at me.

“Don’t stare at me,” I said. “It’s rude.”

“You remind me of my friend Janet. She’s a student at NYU.”

“You must be mistaken. I go to Julliard.” I was being a bitch, yes, but if another attack was about to launch, I was really going to need that inner-bitch with me.

She looked offended and got off at the next stop, mumbling something about Relief Society.

So here I am. With three peaches and Milano cookies. I’ll eat the cookies, but I think I’ll keep the peaches as missiles. Ten to one they’re laying in wait for me right outside.

This needs to be discussed.

Christians everywhere are bristling at the idea of Cosimo Cavaliaro’s newest work of art. You may too, I don’t know. Personally, carving Jesus out of chocolate is the best thing that you can carve him out of if you want to portray the extent of his divinity. Mind, this is coming from a person who worships dark chocolate whether or not it is in the shape of Jesus or Billy Joel. One who stores her precious, gourmet cocoa bars in the fridge like holy water and takes a small piece religiously just before bed, closing her eyes and going on a spiritual mission with every sense that she possesses.

I understand that there are people who don’t feel about chocolate that way. However, I still think that the controversy doesn’t make sense in today’s conservative world. I don’t mean to make light of a serious religious subject (though God knows I would love to), but conservative America has been eating chocolate Jesuses for decades during the holiday seasons. You can buy the entire fucking nativity set in milk chocolate off Amazon.com. His likeness has been wrought upon cookies, JELL-O molds and other various articles of consumption longer than Mr. Cavallaro has been alive.

Reading further into this article, courtesy reuters.com, Cavallaro’s prosecutors voiced another concern:

“They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the prophet Mohammad naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan,”

And:

“It’s an all-out war on Christianity. They wouldn’t show a depiction of Martin Luther King Jr. with genitals exposed on Martin Luther King Day…”

And:

Unlike the typical religious portrayal of Christ, the Cavallaro creation does not include a loincloth.

And:

“He’s not wearing any clothes at all,” said Debbie Charan, 40. “Why would they want to do something like that?”

What a relief. This isn’t about chocolate at all. This is about nudity, because obviously, when Christ was crucified, he was wearing a loin cloth, despite the scarcity of that manner of underwear in 30 A.D.

I understand why this makes people uncomfortable. Western society keeps our bodies under wraps, and when they’re not under wraps, they are very ugly. Like the layouts of neon, eighties-type for pornographic headlines. It makes me wish that there was less fear of pleasure and a bigger fear of violence. The Catholic church didn’t have a negative response to Passion of the Christ. Christians were the movie’s largest audience, with seven-year-old children in bows and white shoes, attending the theater as if they were going to church. (This article in Entertainment Weekly by King particularly struck me. I never saw the movie myself.) Why can we watch Christ being whipped with barbed wire but not without a cloth draped around his hips?

The argument for suffering through such a movie runs along the lines of: “He was mutilated for us. The best I can do is watch him being mutilated.” The nightmares that follow would more than redeem your soul and guarantee passage to heaven. Besides, the scourging scene shows us all how it was.

The latter argument, interestingly enough, applies to crucifixion in the nude as well, but every God-fearing soul would rather watch Christ’s flesh fester with poisoned blood than observe that perfect, anatomically correct body. For all the praise given to God over giving us bodies, you would think the best we could do is embrace its image. Even if it does bring pleasure.

I am disappointed Cavallaro’s sculpture has been rejected. It speaks poignantly on many different levels: admonishing to the commercialism that has taken over the Easter Holidays (Cavallaro stated that the timing of the exhibit was purely coincidental, but displaying “My Sweet Lord” right next to Good Friday is nothing less than a stroke of genius). Also, I was very much looking forward to paying homage to the sculpture by kissing his feet.

Since the display has been cancelled, I would advise checking out his website, where you can view all of his art (including cheese-covered living rooms!) and pillow torture. Though I admit, “Burning Piano” was hard for me to watch.