Rough Stone Rolling

On a whim, I looked up an old mission companion on the Internet today. We haven’t spoken since college (at the University of Utah) and I lost track of him years ago, but not before I witnessed him fall away from the Church.

We became companions toward the last legs of our missions. We were zone leaders– he was the senior and a month ahead of me towards his release date. In retrospect, it wasn’t the most practical of combinations, being zone leaders at the same time our last few months were turning into our last few weeks. Instead of what we had been used to for almost two years– tracting neighborhoods, teaching discussions and keeping up the numbers as a daily routine– Elder G and I drove from county to county interviewing baptismal candidates, doing splits with other elders, sleeping in after getting home after midnight. It was difficult “keeping the eye on the ball” at that point. But we bonded and laughed a lot, and after I returned home– and he already back a month– we hung out quite a bit. My first date when I returned home was a double-date with G. We took a couple of girls to see “The Jazz Singer” starring Neil Diamond, and laughed until tears ran down our faces for how cheesy it was. One of us would start singing “Love on the rocks…” and the girls would lose us to peals of laughter for another five minutes (the girls had missionaries in the field, so it was okay for us not to be too indulgent).

As time wore on, we got on with our lives, met our future spouses and occasionally ran into each other on campus. Towards the end of our contact, we had a class together and he surprised me by saying he could no longer put up with the farce of being a Mormon. It was, he said, a big lie and he was so glad he finally saw through it (his major was psychology…oh, brother). He couldn’t quite articulate how he reached such a conclusion, but it was real to him. I valued his friendship, but as was often the case, our courses soon steered in different directions.

Now, years later, I found him again. He’s plastered all over the search engines, a prominent, published child psychologist in the Midwest. Using the SuperPages web site (a most valuable tool for finding people), I got his home phone number, called, got the machine (a child’s voice) and left a message. I wonder if he’ll return the call. Moreover, I wonder if he found his way back, and if not, if he ever slows when passing a ward building. I loved him and I miss him.

I’ve learned over time that you can’t “peg” the ones who’ll leave the Church. Sometimes there are those who seem so stalwart, and then they do something so completely out of character, and they’re gone… putting highlights in their hair and opening an extra button on their shirt. Boneheads.

On a different note, I’m excited for the new fall season on TV, not least the second season of “Dexter,” which resumes this Sunday. Dexter is, as the ads say, America’s favorite serial killer, more an appointed avenging angel than monster roaming the countryside. In a nutshell, Dexter was adopted by a cop who recognized the boy’s sociopathic tendencies at a very young age and, with love, taught him to harness his impulse to kill for good by stalking killers the courts can’t reach. What really makes the show is Dexter’s voice-over. Now an adult, he shares with us ironic introspection, mirth and confusion as he tries to pass for “normal” to those around him. I guess it’s obvious I like the show very much. On its surface it sounds like a horrible premise, I know, but I assure you the visceral exploits are only a backdrop to a pensive and unexpectedly caring character who just happened to be born with an urge to murder.

The ideal subject for my old friend, master ex-Mormon psychologist, Elder G.