In Search of of an American Religion

Late last week, I ventured to Sharon, Vermont in search of the birthplace of Joseph Smith, the founder and original prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In the summer of 2010, I read one of Oxford University Press' "A Very Short Introduction" books on Mormonism and continued reading from there. Recently, I've enjoyed reading and following the writing and actions of Joanna Brooks, Kate Kelly and other Mormon feminist leaders.

Sharon, Vermont

I learned long ago that the LDS church is not a religion for me, but I hold respect, interest and appreciation for the faith, and am particularly interested in how the LDS Church has spread throughout the world through its missionaries, and how the faith is one of few sects of Christianity that was founded in and had monumental religious experiences occur near exclusively in the United States. Further, the intersection and influence of religion and culture is interesting. I see Mormonism as interwoven with American history, especially westward migration and the freedom to worship.

When I arrived for my visit, I was greeted by a mile-long driveway lined with oak trees. A sign informed visitors that the property is owned by the LDS church and that both a worshipping house (a bit different than a temple, as anyone is permitted to enter) along with a visitor's center and walking trails were available. Colorful flowers were planted sporadically and the location was physically beautiful, a bit like a postcard capturing summer in Vermont.

I was greeted by a female missionary who appeared to be in her sixties. She was friendly, kind and outwardly beautiful, with a long skirt and modest clothing, upholding the Church's guidelines of the physical appearance of a missionary perfectly. The tour began with a focus on genealogy, a popular and cherished topic for the LDS Church. A poster board displayed an intricate spider web diagram in which Joseph Smith was shown to be distantly related to Sir Winston Churchill, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and both the Bush Presidents. I wondered if these names were carefully chosen, or if Joseph Smith held no distant relation to political leaders who might be less favored by members of the church. The tour wasn't extraordinarily fascinating, but explained a bit about Joseph Smith's early years at the turn of the nineteenth century living in Sharon and later, West Lebanon, N.H., working on farms and overcoming life-threatening illnesses with the assistance of doctors at nearby Dartmouth Hospital.

After watching a 20 minute video about Joseph Smith's life in upstate New York where as a teenager, he discovered the golden plates and founded the church, I emerged into the sunlight, where I was greeted by a large framed picture of the LDS Church's current president and prophet, Thomas S. Monson. The man was wearing a suit and tie and something about the image immediately made me feel uneasy and uncomfortable in the confrontation that a major religion was in the hands and power of an 86-year old man. In the seconds that followed though, the papacy and Catholic Church's hierarchy of powerful men suddenly occurred to me.

I spoke with my missionary guide about these beliefs. We spoke about our own religions (Catholicism for me, Mormonism for her) and of our respect for the commitment's of our respective religions in working for others. She finished our tour by showing me the granite monument representing Joseph Smith's life, planted a hundred feet from the home he was born in. The monument stands 50 feet tall, with the base and inscription, but the 38.5 feet of polished stone is seen as the most important, with each foot of granite representing a year of Joseph Smith's life. 

A few years ago, I pondered religious conflict and a lack of acceptance and peace between people, and after some time, came to my own personal belief that every religion (with the exclusion of religious beliefs endangering or putting individuals at risk of harm of any kind) is true and absolutely valid in our world. I believe too, that a better and more cooperative world can be built upon religious understanding and acceptance. We can accomplish far more with our time and lives through understanding one another. I do not identify as Mormon, but the I see the faith, like many religions, as beautiful and true.

Elie Wiesel's Night and Day

I have many favorite genres for books but desire above all else, to seek literature and writing that works for the world, that tells a necessary and untold story that remains with me, that changed my view and urges me to work harder for others, for myself and for our shared surroundings. Literature that dives into culture and religion will always be favored. I was attracted to Nobel Peace prize recipient and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel's trilogy of Night, Dawn and Day but as my local library held only Night and Day, I skipped Dawn and found both to be extraordinary.

I preferred Night of the two. I had greatly enjoyed the Diary of Anne Frank earlier this year and found Night to be a companion of sorts, the latter part. Wiesel's descriptive writing, short sentences and autobiography of his experiences in Auschwitz and later, Buchenwald as a Romanian-Jewish teenager during World War II were powerful and can't thoroughly be explained or appreciated here.

I've read many powerful endings to pieces of writing in journalism, poetry and fiction, and think that any ending that carries a lasting effect of any sort is powerful writing. When I finished Night about a month ago I felt immediately then, and remain confident now, that Wiesel's ending lines were the most lasting I had ever read in literature. I listened to the book as an audio-book while driving and I can remember so vividly exactly where I was and what I watched as I heard his last two sentences. Describing seeing himself in a mirror for the first time in years two weeks after being liberated from Buchenwald, Wiesel writes,

"From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me."

Day was far more fictional in comparison to Night although select themes did appear to arrive from Wiesel's own life as he writes in the first person of a Holocaust survivor living in New York and contemplating the existence and power of God in the modern day. I felt that Wiesel closely examined the Jewish faith against the backdrop of a city of immigrants, and the emptiness the main character experiences in his relationship with God as he works to understand the injustices seared into his memory from half a world away decades earlier. Day was far less direct than Night, speaking instead to general and familiar issues of memory, loss, and recovery after tragedy, yet in the context and frame of a tragedy that few will ever experience or understand.

Coast

I've long loved and felt a connection with the ocean. I grew up about an hour away from the coast and the occasional summer day trip or vacation on the ocean brought forth a love for the sound of waves, the natural plants and species of the ocean, and when brave enough, (specifically with New England/Canadian beaches…) the excitement of swimming in the bitterly cold water.

In galleries, it's typically the seascapes I gravitate to, the mixture of blues and whites, a blend of sea and sky that's simple to become lost in. The coast influenced my time in Scotland, too. Although I never swam in the North Sea, the image of the still water in the mornings, or the white-tipped waves before a storm, the sounds of waves and seagulls in the evenings, along with the reflective and healing powers that an ocean horizon seems to possess only supported my interest and love.

A few days after visiting southern Vermont, I met up with Megan, a friend from high school and her sister Lyndsay. We headed east and arrived in Rye, New Hampshire. The day was less than ideal for anytime spent near a coast, with cold summer temperatures and heavy clouds for much of the day, but we walked the length of each beach and high piles of coastal rocks regardless, laughing and noticing the abundance of seagulls. When the sky turned blue in the early afternoon and the sun did appear, we fell asleep in the sun.

Rye, New Hampshire.

June in Southern Vermont

A couple of Tuesdays ago, my Mom and I drove two hours to southwestern Vermont to visit Hildene, the summer home of Robert Todd Lincoln, the oldest son of Abraham Lincoln. Situated between two mountain ranges, the home was enormous, historic and beautiful. My Mom was particularly interested in the delicately shaped gardens filled with peonies which were in full bloom.

Sundial, Hildene, Manchester, Vermont.

In the home I grew up in, my Mom maintained two white peony bushes and while I had never held too strong of an opinion of the scent, while at Hildene, I understood why she had loved the late-June flowers for so long. The scent is indescribable, almost like a super-rose.

The interior of the home was fascinating. The back garden, placed between the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains was naturally gorgeous with its roses, peonies, closely trimmed hedges and wildflowers.

Earlier in the day, we stopped at the Vermont Country Store. A sprawling wooden-floored shop that seemed to sell nearly everything from clothing to children's puzzles, to bedding to cheese, the store was certainly iconic in its old-fashioned merchandise, but had a sprinkling of newer material too, seemingly marketing a bit from both old and new.

The Vermont Country Store, Weston, Vermont.

When Religion and State Collide

As I looked up towards the New Hampshire state house late yesterday morning behind newspaper and a half-eaten burrito, I was reminded of the Supreme Court's ruling the previous day in which a narrow decision struck down an integral part of the federal health care mandate, ruling that for-profit businesses of any size are permitted to restrict contraception to female employees if the employer cites a religious reason to do so.

The New Hampshire state house, July 1st.

In my mind, I asked the state house how and why it became less relevant in comparison to religion, how it could happen that the law could no longer protect every American citizen no matter whom they were employed by. Growing up in that small city and looking across the skyline, I thought momentarily that I had received my answer. No building except for a house of worship is permitted to be taller than the building I was facing, the seat of New Hampshire government. I knew that religion and law must, and always will, co-exist. Yet I couldn't understand where religious freedom came into play in the law.

For personal reference, I like religion, I'm religious, but I've long felt that it must exist independently of the law. The U.S. might be an overwhelmingly Christian nation (roughly 80%) but it's been built upon the ideal of welcoming immigrants from every culture and religion. While Americans can and should practice religious freedom in being able to worship free of prejudice within the U.S., I can't quite understand why I might inflict my religion on others and include it within my own definition of religious freedom.

How is religious freedom achieved by asking one's employees (in the case of Hobby Lobby, (the main plaintiff in Monday's ruling) 13,000 Americans of various faiths) to conform to a particular (very private) aspect of a particular religion? It's as if the definition of religious freedom has curved into asking others to conform.

By taking power  away from government and placing it into the hands of people to choose if employees receive the full benefit of the federal health care law, the ruling reminds me a bit of Citizens United a few years ago, which ruled that corporations can be defined as individuals and provide political campaigns with as much financial support as possible. It reminded me of the wealth needed now for an American presidential campaign and the power that corporations, not people, hold in the United States today.

I want to understand all sides, I want to understand the victory this could be viewed as, but I simply can't if one's choice is being taken away. Surely an employee can work elsewhere, surely they can purchase out of pocket, but how far will religious freedom lead individuals in erasing the health care mandate and mandating the lives of others? When did religious freedom become a method to conform the lives of others?

Green Places & Spaces

Joyeux Juillet! Since my brother began French classes last week, I've been corresponding with him in French as much as possible, the language I once learned for four years but swiftly forgot. Slowly, it's arrived back in chunks. I expect him to surpass my French skills in the very near future as he conquers quint-lingualdom.

I went walking yesterday morning when the sun was high and the sky blue. I walked a new path where trees lined both sides and when I found a patch of wildflowers, calamity set in. Both yesterday and this afternoon were cloudy and hot with the evening becoming sunny and warm.

This morning, Concord, New Hampshire state house.

Recently I've been swimming, finding a certain weightlessness and freedom once under water. I've always found bodies of water of any size constricting in the most unusual way, almost claustrophobic despite the vast space beneath one's feet. In a similar sense that some might be uncomfortable around heights, I feel similar while swimming, uncomfortable and slightly anxious. Yet I enjoy it. The vulnerability allows me to feel more free, more interested in my surroundings, more eager to explore. Floating this evening in the middle of the lake, I heard voices but nobody was within sight. It felt isolating, rural, concerningly empty, yet beautiful and serene.

July 1st, this evening.

Late last week I finished reading American Bloomsbury, a book that interested me as because of it's in-depth research on the Concord, Massachusetts friendships and literary lives of Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorn among a few others. I had mostly read a piece or two from each and while I never lived there and hold no memories, I was born in Concord, Massachusetts, a town of roughly 15,000, west of Boston. The overlaps of each writer in friendship and how society influenced their writing was fascinating. Through the analysis of Thoreau's Walden, I was reminded of why our natural surroundings matter, what peace they bring to us and why they must continue to exist.