Rough Stone Rolling

My birthday’s coming up again. I wasn’t thinking much about it until my sister (Our Lady of Perpetual Ingratitude) called this afternoon. She warned that when I got my present from her, I wasn’t to think it was weird or anything–just call her and she’ll tell me what it was for.

“It’ll look like a keychain…”

“Is it a vial for oil?”

“Yeah! How did you know?”

My sister’s not LDS. To her, the vial was weird. Truthfully, I’m always worried what the airport security people think when they’re scrutinizing it. The fact that my sister bought it for me just goes to show how cool she is. One year she bought me a tie with temples and Moronis on it. Always trying to reach out. If I were gay, she’d buy me a boxed set of Will & Grace and a Liza Minelli CD.

My sister was a practicing Mormon once. She was born LDS, changed to Catholicism when my mother returned to that faith, later became LDS again (she liked the missionaries), went back to Catholicism (was a nanny for a polygamist group during that stint) and then took a wild turn to evangelical Christian, which she is now. Of course, as far as the vaults in the granite mountains are concerned, she’s still safely LDS.

I think I’ve mentioned before, my mom left the Church back in 1973, two years after she joined, and then for 32 years tried to have her name removed from the records. Not actively, mind you, but whenever it crossed her mind, she’d go back to calling bishops and the Church office, only to get discouraged and give up, again. Finally in 2005, a bishop took pity on her and got the ball rolling. Her home teacher stopped by and gave her the good news when it was final. When it was time for him to leave, she said, “You’re still coming to see me, aren’t you?” He said he would, and he still is.

I feel bad for those people whose records end up on our ward’s list, and we have to hunt them down so they can say “Take my name off the damn records!” again. I feel bad for us, too– by the time we get to them, they’re ready to drink grape Kool-Aid.

What I don’t have the heart to tell Mom is, even though her name is “taken off the records,” it’s still there on other records. Always will be. Hence, the Eagles line on the title.  Spooky ol’ Church.

Getting back to birthdays, I wonder how we celebrate them in the next life. I’m not going to say if we celebrate them, ’cause I know we do. Didn’t Jesus celebrate His by re-establishing the Church on His birthday? Happy birthday to me, indeed. And didn’t we have birthdays in the premortal life? You know, for the day we changed from tadpole intelligences to spirit people? The mind boggles.

For my birthday this year, I’m going to play hookie and spend the day at a multiplex, watch me at least three movies. Being the father of a pre-teen, I’m tired of Bratz and Game Plan and Nancy Drew and She’s the Man. Time for Daddy to see him some grown-up stuff. Like American Gangster and Hitman and The Mist and Enchanted.

One last thing…

Watched Mitt’s “Faith in America” speech today and, overall, liked it. The thing that stuck with me, though, was not his speech. It was watching the talking heads– seasoned political analysts, all– doing a “pre-game show”on one of the news channels before Mitt went on. One of them mentioned his shock over people’s hostility when he talked about the Mormon Church. The others chimed in: Yeah, that blew me away! Why are they so against it?
Oh yeah, boys… you’re in the lair now.