A Spiritual Twig
Turns out we lost one of our best Mormon writers even before he was born. His name: Ron Hansen. I found this out a few years ago when I read his collection of essays: A Stay Against Confusion.
Somewhere up his line a batch of ancestors joined the Mormons, began the trek west and bunkered down somewhere for the winter (I don’t have the book in front of me, so we’ll just call it Winter Quarters). Their liking of the place increased proportionately with their disliking of some of the Mormon leaders. When spring came, Hansen’s ancestors stayed behind, dropping out of that epic Mormon story, giving up the chance to be leaders in a new church occupying (to them) a new land, and forfeiting the chance to be sung about in our church meetings and eulogized on July 24th.
To top it all off, they turned Catholic. Now, instead of instead of Utah: Stories, we have Nebraska: Stories, instead of Eliza the Prophetess, we have Mariette In Ecstasy; and instead of The Near Assassination of Governor Boggs by the Wild Man Porter Rockwell, we have The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
It’s sad, I tell you.
I was thinking about this during last week’s lesson on spiritual heritage. I was struck by the way people told stories about their ancestors. From what I saw there was a main trunk of stories, the ones that stuck with the Church. The ancestors we heard about made it past Winter Quarters, turned down an opening in the Donner Party, and kept the faith even after they saw Salt Lake Valley.
Lurking in the background were the aborted stories. Like Ron Hansen’s ancestors. Indistinct characters that had cut themselves off from the tree from whence they had sprung. Sinking into obscurity like firecrackered army figures in a sand box.
I realized that my own family history is probably full of these side stories. Who keeps track of these broken twigs on the great story tree? Are they pruned from the tree to keep it healthy? To isolate disease from the larger body?
There’s my great aunt May who left Utah and the Church for New York and never quite came back. There’s my great aunt Grace who did the same but made her way to California. Their stories are in many ways lost to our family’s history. Not only because of their physical distance, but because of their spiritual distance. They have become footnotes rather than themes.
But then, what about my great-great grandparents? The ones lured away from Lutheran Sweden into the polygamy pits of Utah? The branch that broke itself off the great Lutheran story, off the great story of the Swensons? The branch brought to a new garden on a new continent with a new religion? The branch grafted onto the great story that is Mormonism? What is left of their story on their original story tree? Probably a faded rumor, if anything.
I’m starting to get interested in these broken stories. These stories that have had the gall to wander into a new plot line and take on some new characters. These stories that have wandered so far that their source no longer recognizes them. I’m interested in these stories because sometimes I wonder if I’m going to become one of them. Life is full of surprises.
If I do become one, what will I be to my spiritual heritage? A footnote? A stillborn plotline? Or a grafted branch?
July 18th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Well, the good news is that all the righteous branches will eventually be grafted back into the same tree, the one true universal and catholic Church of Jesus Christ of all days and ages. The division is temporal at best. If we wait long enough, nearly everyone now living (including many of those who are now truly wicked) will also be reclaimed, redeemed, and grafted in to the one true vine. Of course the wicked are in for a rather rough ride if they do not speedily repent.
July 18th, 2006 at 11:46 am
The righteous too.
July 18th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
My 95-year-old grandfather passed away a couple of weeks ago. (My grandmother preceded him the year before.) By LDS standards my grandfather, and avid temple worker in Los Angeles for 20+ years, was a righteous man; by any standard he was a good man.
As I mixed with his progeny — his 6 children, 30 grandchildren, and 20+ great grandchildren — during and after his funeral, I reflected upon many of the same ideas expressed by Stephen above: what is his legacy, his story? The thoughts continued when, back at my grandfather’s home, we respectfully sifted through and divided my grandfather’s stuff — items dating back to his WW2 experiences in the Pacific, his mission in the early 30s to the Eastern States, and items dating all the way back to the turn of the century. Fortunately, my grandfather’s story (both secular, but especially spiritual) is well-documented in a published autobiography.
But I wondered about the rest of us, especially the aunt Mays and aunt Graces of my family. My grandfather’s 6 children are all active Mormons, but approx 25% of his grandchildren are now inactive. This was a source of great concern for my proud grandparents during the last 10-15 years of their lives. They sometimes wondered aloud of the many sacrifices both they and their ancestors made for the Gospel, only to watch many of their grandchildren throw it away. Of course I loved them both, and know they only wanted what they thought was best for each of us.
I am the oldest grandchild and am counted among the “Actives”; but truth be told, my heart and mind are probably more aligned with the “Inactives”. They were easy to spot at the funeral: there was the Goth granddaughter who, though she probably always dresses like she’s attending a funeral, somehow managed to stick out more than everyone else at this particular funeral; others were given away by their hairstyles or piercings. They moved about among the Actives, tried to act “normal”, but there seemed to be an invisible wall separating “them” and “us”. If your family has active and inactive family members, you have no doubt experienced the “invisible wall”.
Now that my grandfather has died, and we are all spread out across the United States, would I see them again? Some of them, certainly, but all of them? Doubtful. What would become of their stories? My “undercover” status amongst the Actives has given me privileged access to the conversations of the Inactives’ parents — my aunts and uncles — over the years. I know of their love for their “wayward” and “lost” children, the sorrow they are sometimes unable to mask as they discuss so-and-so’s secular-only accomplishments. When my aunts and uncles or Active cousins’ autobiographies are written, what will be said of their Inactive children/siblings?
I enjoyed spending time with both my Active and Inactive relatives, but I must confess to feeling a strong urge to individually approach each of my Inactive cousins and give them the “secret Inactive handshake”, assuming such a grip exists. I wanted to clap each of them on the shoulders and tell them to “Keep the Faith”, whatever that faith may be. And I wanted to tell them to write their stories. I wanted to do it all, but all I did was think it.
July 19th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Stephen, I really like the respect you give to the stories that spin off/break off from the main (Brighamite LDS) plot line. I’ve wondered a lot about this recently–will I become a broken branch?
Because I’m both a Mormon and a student of comparative religions, I think I have two ways of looking at this: from the Mormon tree, and from the orchard. As a Mormon, it’s hard to see the “broken branches” without sadness and regret. But as a convert and a child of a Kansas-born agnostic and a Japanese Buddhist, I’m drawn to the grafting and replanting and movement between the trees, and see a richer, stronger grove for it.
July 25th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Stephen,
I’ve been thinking about this post for the past week. I have a number of thoughts, I’m just not certain how to express them.
As I look at my family I see two distinct groups: those who seem to actively seek spirituality, and those who tend to be content with the status quo. This doesn’t mean that only those who exist on the periphery are actively cultivating spirituality, but of the two groups, I feel much better about those who work and wrestle and grow, wherever that growth takes them. This includes fairly stalwart members of the church, some that would be considered inactive, and some that have left.
I think it is due to this that I like the stories and the lives of ancestors who pushed boundaries, whether those boundaries were institutional or simply their own. I respect these people. These are the stories that are meaningful to me.
So, whether you end up a main branch or a grafted twig, judging by the thought and effort you put into your spirituality I do think your story is meaningful, and I think your story will be cherished by those who come after you. Not by everyone, certainly, but many.