A Peculiar Life

In the scriptures, disciples of Christ are referred to as “a peculiar people.” This is a phrase Latter-Day Saints have taken and run with. We’ve sung songs about it, written articles about it, quoted it in General Conference. On lds.org it comes up with more than a hundred hits. Thing is, it’s the truth in so many ways: As Mormons, we have peculiar customs and symbols, peculiar ceremonies and rites of passage, even our own peculiar terminology and intonation. Stateside church buildings almost universally have a stage and a basketball court as part of a burlap-walled “cultural hall,” (bizarre if you really think about it) and 12- to13-year-old girls in the youth group program are referred to as “Beehives” (which, given the buzzy, busy nature of girls at that age, maybe isn’t so strange after all). Monthly church meetings invariably include women crying from the pulpit and kids “burying their testimonies.”

On a more serious level, there are also wise but rigorous standards of conduct that impact everything from health to finances to sexual behavior. And there is a level of service-oriented (read: unpaid) commitment for active members that may rival that of a full-time job. In fact, for missionaries, such service becomes a full-time occupation: during those eighteen to twenty-four months, your entire life revolves around the Church. In a culture that reveres secular living, what could be more peculiar than that?

Here’s something: Try being gay on top of it all. Try growing up crushing wildly on your youth leaders—so that your whole family knows and thinks there’s something wrong with you. Try gulping down doubt and anxiety as you attempt to teach temple marriage to a family of investigators on your mission—while, in the back of your mind, questioning your own conviction. Try coming home from said mission feeling like you’ve conquered your issues with sexuality—only to find yourself in the distinctly peculiar position of needing to say a prayer before English class each week that the girl across the room won’t notice you staring. Now try living a life where you can neither embrace nor deny the gospel that has lit your life since birth. That’s peculiar.

Members of the Church certainly don’t have a corner on the market of peculiarity (I mean, look at Amish lifestyles or Catholic canonizations*?) nor is the peculiarity of being a lesbian who tries to follow Christ exclusive to my experience. But it’s enough to render this life of mine pretty complicated—a life that has run the gamut from full-fledged rebellion to ardent conversion to my current unenviable place of spiritual ambivalence. Here’s hoping I get things figured out one day!

*This is meant in an entirely light-hearted, affectionate way: I mean, “Some of my best friends are Catholic!”