Rough Stone Rolling

I made the mistake of paying too much attention to the Springsteen song, “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” while in the car with Miss D. last night, coming home from YW. After listening a while she asked, “What’s it about?” I tried to explain how, as we get older we find ourselves looking back on the sweet, youthful things that were once part of our lives; and now we can only watch them, removed, with bittersweet admiration, knowing they’re forever in our past. “So,” she said, “It’s an older guy looking at girls in skimpy clothes.” “I guess, but–” “Ew.” Since then she’s been going around the house, singing in a pathetically maudlin faux-deep voice, And the girls in their summer clothes pass me byyyyy…, and then cracking up.

There’s been so much commentary on the subject of gays in the Church, it’s gotten stale and repetitive. Having known a few over the years, I don’t find it a particularly novel topic. I just think it’s an impossible situation to be in– like being a Jew in the PLO. A subject that does interest me, however, is the voice we really haven’t heard from much yet (except for Carol Lynn Pearson), the “beard”– the woman who loves and marries the homosexual man. Many didn’t know their husbands’ preferences when they knelt across the altar from them. Some– like Pearson– were aware of it from the get-go. Some, I suspect, believed their men either repented of those tendencies or felt their love and faith could cure them. And I can’t help but wonder if some got married– even though they knew they would fall into the category of Beard– because they were really close, loving friends and because they wanted to be married. I would very much like to hear their perspective; A documentary or essay should be made. ‘Nuff said.

Names have always been powerful and necessary symbols: We name our boats & cars, our pets (real & stuffed), consumer products (Captain Crunch, Mrs. Butterworth, et. al.), our baseball bats and hunting rifles. We give affectionate names to hurricanes and extinct animals and cavemen and planet-killing asteroids. Even bank robbers and serial killers get clever monikers to make them more attractive, ominous and/or cool.

Nicknames are also given and taken when the real ones just won’t do: “Lucky Lindy,” “Magic Johnson,” “The Chairman of the Board,” “The Boss.” Some are embraced so completely, we don’t even know their real names anymore– “Babe Ruth,” “Lady Bird,” “Buffalo Bill,” “Cher,” “Mark Twain.” I tried to get a nickname myself a couple of times over the years, like “Mr. Epitome” (it never caught on), and was given a couple more against my will, like “Peanut Head”– the result of wearing a hard hat with an afro.

Throughout history and to this day, names have been powerful resumes. For good or bad, they bring with them a lot of weight; the reputation of the bearer– the credit rating, if you will, of the person’s integrity, honesty, responsibility and behavior. A son could even gain passage at the mention of his father, such was the respect for names. It’s a currency we cannot afford to devalue.

In Othello, Shakespeare poetically illustrates the value of a name:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

Naming kids is a whole other bunch of bananas, but it still traces back to honor and/or symbolism. Many fathers are fond of naming their boys– and even some of their girls– after themselves (I’m not one of them), like it’s a legacy. My dad wanted me to have his name, John, so I was christened John David. As soon as I could spit out the Binky and talk I said, “Call me David.” A friend told me last night how she changed one of her daughters’ names three times because whenever she and her husband arrived at a name they liked, someone in the family objected– it reminded them of someone they didn’t like. Finally, on the last night they could legally change the baby’s name without paying a fee, they got out the list of the Top 20 Most Popular Names that year, and the husband closed his eyes and pointed. Today Brittany’s about to graduate high school, and my friend confessed, “I never liked that name.”

There’s also the Mormon legend about how a family patriarch blessed his granddaughter and gave her the name “Lynn Oleum —.” I’m torn here. It’s the kind of thing I can’t believe, but at the same time, knowing how some saints can be, I can’t totally discount it, either.

Then, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include the story of George Albert Smith. He once dreamed he had passed away and was in the spirit world walking through a forest. Suddenly, he saw his grandfather coming toward him. He was so happy to see him! His grandfather stopped him and said, “I would like to know what you have done with my name.” President Smith, who was named after his grandfather, paused to think and then answered, “I have never done anything with your name of which you need be ashamed.”

As you’ve probably suspected, I’m leading up to the point that we’re all taking upon us the name of Christ. More important than any of the aforementioned, taking Christ’s name is the primary and ultimate responsibility. I say we “are taking” instead of “have taken” because being baptized and receiving the sacrament are only expressions of a willingness to do so– as Brother Oaks calls it, “an expression of our candidacy.” The actual taking part is a perpetual process of faith and works. If any are to believe that baptism and confirmation, and the weekly bread and water, are the actual name-taken moments, they might as well join the ranks of the born agains (”I’ve been saved and I don’t need nothin’ else”). We take upon us the Lord’s name when we go to the temple and make covenants, when we proactively look for ways to serve, when we strive every day to be like Him– a becoming that doesn’t stop even after we’ve drawn our last mortal breath. Our goal is to keep taking His name until the day we have the same encounter with Him that George Albert Smith had with his grandfather. When my beloved Savior looks upon me and says, “I would like to know what you have done with my name,” I hope I can squarely look back at Him with a grateful smile and say something that pleases Him. For me, there will be no sweeter words than, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Oh, how I pray this to be so.

Switching gears:

The banana we eat today is not the one your grandparents ate. That one — known as the Gros Michel — was, by all accounts, bigger, tastier and hardier than the variety we know and love, which is called the Cavendish. The unavailability of the Gros Michel is easily explained: it is virtually extinct. Introduced to our hemisphere in the late 19th century, the Gros Michel was almost immediately hit by a blight that wiped it out by 1960. The Cavendish was adopted at the last minute by the big banana companies— Chiquita and Dole— because it was resistant to that blight, a fungus known as Panama disease… Now Panama disease is back, and the Cavendish does not appear to be safe from this new strain, which appeared two decades ago in Malaysia, spread slowly at first, but is now moving at a geometrically quicker pace. There is no cure, and nearly every banana scientist (If I had a nickel every time I heard a kid say, “I want to be a banana scientist…”) says that though Panama disease has yet to hit the banana crops of Latin America– which feed our hemisphere– the question is not if this will happen, but when. Even worse, the malady has the potential to spread to dozens of other banana varieties, including African bananas, the primary source of nutrition for millions.

The problem is that all banana plants around today are sterile (Chris, insert joke here). The only way to cultivate new plants is by cuttings (taking a small section of an existing plant and growing it into a big plant). Consequently, there is no way to introduce new variations. If all the varieties around today become susceptible to disease then that’s it– they’re gone. For those of us in the West that’s just one less choice in the supermarket, but there are vast swathes of the world where the banana is the staple carbohydrate source for millions of people. It’d be like the West no longer having anything to make flour for bread, and having no alternative. Anyone who thinks this isn’t a huge problem is wrong.

For over a half-century we’ve enjoyed television– some quality, some not. I come from a huge television-watching family. Growing up, I always had my favorites– some are still in syndication and some most of you probably never heard of: It Takes a Thief, Lost in Space, Combat!, The Name of the Game, The FBI, It’s About Time, Maya, Gomer Pyle, Laugh-In and Mannix are just a few shows in whose blue glow we basked. My parents enjoyed news programs like 60 Minutes, The Huntley-Brinkley Report and Meet the Press, and I watched a religious puppet show called Davey & Goliath (”The sign says ‘Danger’, Davey!”).

Television has morphed a lot over the years, mostly for the worse. It’s yet another signpost that tells me the world’s passing me by. Society treats the old wholesome fare such as the The Andy Griffith Show like they treat codes of morality– that is, cute naive’ novelties. Today’s viewer requires “edge” (Heck, I’m as guilty as the next guy, but I still watch Andy Griffith), with plenty of graphic violence, sexual content, adult subject matter and shock value. And “reality.”

Reality TV is the banana gombu of the family television. And anyone who thinks it isn’t a huge problem is wrong.

I thought I was jaded enough to chuckle and shake my head at just about anything… Hell’s Kitchen, Trading Spouses, The Hills, Cheaters, that show on Bravo about stage moms…(I’m not going to include Ice Road Truckers here. That’s just good, wholesome family fun)… but The Moment of Truth blindsided me– full-scale blew me away. Here we’re being entertained by spouses admitting to each other how they lied to them, want to cheat on them, have no respect for them… kids revealing to parents how they blame them for their unhappiness, parents letting kids know how they gambled away their college funds…in front of 14.7 million viewers… in the hopes they get that cool half-mil. I have to change the channel even when the damn commercial comes on! And how ironic is the title of the show? How poorly we attend our names when we let our guards down.

I wince when I think of the stupid things I do, how immature and unrefined I am. I reflect on how far I’ve gone in life and how little I seem to have learned from it. It’s in these moments I pray, “Please Lord, don’t take me anytime soon. I’ve so much I still need to fix. I know I can do it. Just, please, some more time.”

And the girls in their summer clothes pass me by.