moosh in indy.

Hello, your friendly neighborhood Mormon here to ask about Ash Wednesday.

Nope, we don’t do Ash Wednesday, nor do we do Lent. So needless to say we are easily confused when we see people with ash smudges walking around Target. Cody thought it was a joke he wasn’t in on, I was oblivious and my friend PolkaDots thought her friend had print toner smudged on her forehead and tried to wipe it off.

Whoops.

So (please correct me if I’m wrong) Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40 days until Easter that represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where, according to the Bible, he endured the temptation of Satan. Wearing smudges of burnt palm leaves on one’s forehead is an ancient ritual that marks the beginning of the Lenten season on (the name is all making sense now) Ash Wednesday.

So that’s good to know. And kind of (not to sound condescending) neat.
You see, growing up in Utah there weren’t a whole lot of Catholics, Episcopalians and Methodists milling about (at least that I knew about). Another thing someone who doesn’t hang with a big Lent observing crowd should know is that a lot of restaurants change their menus during Lent. I’ve noticed that Wendy’s now has a fish sandwich, Taco Bell has a “Lent friendly” menu and apparently Chipotle “puts the burrito back in Lent.”

Things I would have never understood until moving here. I don’t remember ever seeing “Lent friendly burritos” in Utah. But caffeine free Mountain Dew? Only in Utah baby, only in Utah.

So to all my Lent observing peeps, do you not eat any meat (excluding fish) during Lent? What about eggs and stuff? Anything else I should know?

And does anyone else have any “I didn’t know about Ash Wednesday and tried to wipe someone’s smudges off” stories? PolkaDots was pretty embarrassed and would appreciate any commiseration.

Have I offended anyone? I sure hope not, because that is so not my thing.

You may not like Mormons all that much, you may enjoy thinking we’re big bunches of crazy more than acknowledging that we share the same air as you, but woo ha you’ve gotta love that we are organized little buggers. (And by “we” I certainly don’t mean “me”, I mean all the people responsible for running the LDS church.)

You may have heard on the news that our Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, passed away January 27 at the age of 97. Now, the Catholics may not like this, but the Pope to the Catholic church is what the Prophet is to the LDS church. The only higher authority than the Prophet is God Himself.

And this is where I get to the organization part. And again, it’s not to make you a Mormon, or make you like us even more than you already should. It’s just a little (true) information about my church. Because if you’re not totally hip to the Mormons you may still think of us as a bunch of screwy, cult like polygamists. And really I don’t blame you if you choose to be naive. The false, screwy, cult-like polygamist stereotype is way more interesting than the completely normal God fearing family oriented truth.

On to my point.

Everyone who is a member of this church has (for the lack of a better phrase) someone to answer to. As a family we answer to each other. We in turn answer to a bishop who presides over our ward. (A ward is a congregation made up of people living in a certain area. (For example, back in Utah our ward was all the LDS members living in a six-block radius; out here our ward is all the members living in about a ten-mile radius.)) The bishop then answers to the stake president (a stake is a collection of wards in the same area; our ward out here makes up a quarter of Indianapolis. Back in Utah our stake covered about three square miles.) The stake president then answers to an area authority (Do I need to explain that an “area” is a collection of Stakes within a city, state, country or nation? Because I just did.) The area authorities report to the Quorum of the Seventy (there’s actually more than one Quorum and there’s a whole lot more than Seventy people in it, but that’s not important.) The Seventies then report to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which are Twelve (generally older) men who are kind of like a board of directors. Above the Quorum of the Twelve is the First Presidency, made up of three men and led by the Prophet. (Think CEO, COO and CFO, only to God, not to a company.) The Prophet answers to God himself.

Now this is where the LDS church is unique. We believe in and sustain a living prophet who receives modern revelation through God. (Still with me here? How’s the crazy meter?)

All of our clergy members, be they bishops, stake presidents or the Prophet are unpaid and they are called to their positions by a revelation from God. This is another way our church is unique. None of our clergy are formally trained for their callings and they generally have another job outside their church duties. We had one bishop who was a retired three-star general. We had another one who was a mechanic for the FAA. Normal guys volunteering their time to watch over the affairs of the church and its members.

President Hinckley was the fifteenth prophet of our church (a lifelong duty once called), and today his counselor became the new prophet. His name is Thomas S. Monson and he’s a swell guy.

You still with me? Gosh, that was kind of you to make it through such a long post. I know, I KNOW. There’s someone reading this simply seething with righteous indignation. I don’t need you to tell me all the mean things that I’ve been told before. I’m a good person and I very much enjoy my religion. I’m not expecting anyone to agree with me, I’m just putting information out there in case anyone was curious or confused. If you weren’t curious or confused, then this post wasn’t meant for you, so click elsewhere and keep your mean opinions to yourself.

Thanks.

I sometimes wonder what someone with all the patience in the world could do for the moosh. Someone who had the patience to sit down with her and teach her every time she asks “BUT WHY?” instead of answering “BECAUSE.” Someone who could not worry about time and just let her wander at her own pace and discover new things. Someone who wouldn’t lose their own temper at every other blood curdling tantrum that came their way.

Why, oh why, do I only see my own glaring faults as a parent?

I am taken aback sometimes at the pure awesomeness that is the moosh. The things she says, the way she does things, the stuff she knows. Given that I am with her 90% of the time I should be able to take credit for a lot of that shouldn’t I?

So why can’t I? Why do I feel I am being self indulgent if I pat myself on the back for raising a somewhat decent and completely swell kid?

Ever heard the saying “I was a really good mom before I had kids”?

Totally applies to me.

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I wrote this before I left for church. Before I left for church madder than a wet hen. As I sat in my class seething with anger and frustration at myself and the world in general the teacher read this quote from our late Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley.

“And so I plead with you tonight, my dear sisters. Sit down and quietly count the debits and the credits in your role as a mother. It is not too late. When all else fails, there is prayer and the promised help of the Lord to assist you in your trial. But do not delay, start now, whether your child be 6 or 16. Do not trade your birthright as a mother for some bauble of passing value. Let your first interest be your home. The baby you hold in your arms will grow quickly as the sunrise and sunset of the rushing days. I hope you will have every reason to be proud concerning your children. If with all you have done there is an occasional failure, you can still say, “at least I did the very best of which I was capable. I tried as hard as I knew how. I let nothing stand in the way of my role as a mother.”

It’s hard to be hard on yourself after hearing something like that.

I so love church.