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| Religion Forum Index » Mormon Forum » MISS THE MORMON MISSION....... |
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| Sword of Laban... |
 Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 6:15 pm |
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All I Wanted Was a Hug
By HOLLY WELKER
New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
I WAS strolling through a park in Taichung, Taiwan, hand in hand with
my missionary companion at the time, Sister Shi. Although she was
Chinese and I American, we both were 22-year-old women serving as
missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — the
Mormons. Our stroll wasn’t recreational; we were looking for people to
chat up, hoping to persuade them to accept a pamphlet and invite us to
their homes for an in-depth discussion of the church.
We hadn’t met with much success, so partly for mutual support, partly
because we liked each other well enough and partly because it was a
perfectly acceptable thing for women to do in Taiwan, we held hands.
Before long, we came upon a teenage girl and boy who, like us, were
conservatively dressed and holding hands.
“Will you look at that?” Sister Shi said in Mandarin, turning slightly
to watch them walk away. “That’s disgusting.”
I was a year into my 18-month mission and could talk comfortably in
Mandarin. “Why?” I countered. “They’re just doing what we’re doing.”
“But anyone can look at us and see there’s nothing going on,” she
said. “If you look at them, you know something is definitely going
on.”
The teenagers actually struck me as utterly innocent. But Sister Shi
was right about one thing: Nothing was going on between us. In fact,
nothing was going on between me and anyone. Up to that point in my
life, nothing much ever had. Courtesy of my Mormon upbringing, I was,
aside from a few unremarkable dates, completely inexperienced.
Heading off on my mission only extended and, by design, enforced my
isolation and inexperience. Many of the rules missionaries live with
are meant to reduce intimacy so that we are seen — by ourselves and by
others — as servants of God, individuals set apart for a specific
period of righteous labor, rather than as normal human beings pursuing
normal human activities and relationships.
We were instructed not to let anyone call us by our first names. We
were forbidden to engage in physical contact beyond a handshake with
any member of the opposite sex. We were forbidden to date or pursue
romantic relationships with anyone living within our mission
territory.
Girlfriends or boyfriends back home were allowed, but interaction with
them was limited to weekly letters — no phone calls. While men become
eligible for missions at age 19, women can’t serve until they are 21,
partly because many believe that the slight age difference reduces
romantic attractions between missionaries.
Companions are reassigned every few months, which can prevent either
love or hatred from becoming too intense.
I sought out connection where I could, within the bounds of what was
permitted. Descended from no-nonsense Mormon pioneers, I am not and
never have been excessively affectionate, so even today it jars me to
look at photographs from my mission; I am shocked at the displays of
physical affection that became part of my friendships with women when
I had so few other avenues for intimacy.
There I am in the photos, over and over, my arms draped around my
roommates, their arms around me, one woman kissing another on the
cheek. This is not to say that I was overtly affectionate with every
companion or roommate I had. A few shared my strong physical reserve,
so although we liked each other, we did little but exchange an
occasional awkward hug. But in many cases, when we women felt at
liberty to express our affections, we did so enthusiastically, without
reservation, because we knew it was both innocent and harmless.
My desire for affection from male missionaries — that was neither
innocent nor harmless. In most of the photographs of me with the
“elders” (an ironic title, given they were only 19 or 20), we stand
discreetly side by side, a good six inches or more between us, my
hands clasped chastely in front of me, while their hands are in their
pockets.
There are a few joke photos: In one, I am posing with one hand on my
hip and the other behind my head while an elder conspicuously checks
me out. In another, taken during an outing at the beach, a good friend
kneels in the sand at my feet, hands clenched imploringly before him
while I turn away in disdain. These playful, suggestive poses raised
eyebrows but weren’t serious infractions, as no actual contact
occurred.
In particular, I had a massive crush on Elder Corelli, one of the
highest-ranking missionaries in Taichung. A gangly, 6-foot-8
basketball player, he was good-humored and flirtatious, with a toothy
grin and freckles.
Despite being younger, the elders were set up as authority figures we
female missionaries were to consult with about our problems. Mine
ranged from a broken rib and occasional bouts of vertigo incurred in
an accident to plain old religious doubt. With the fervor of a young
aspiring poet, I obsessed over the question, “What does God think of
art?” Meaning, is it possible to be a righteous servant of God if you
are more interested in the writings of Shakespeare, Austen and Woolf
than those of the Mormon founder Joseph Smith? I was pretty sure the
answer was no, and I was unhappy about it.
One night I asked the elders for a blessing because my heart was so
disorderly. Asking for a blessing — essentially something you can ask
of any Mormon man who holds the priesthood, which most adult males do
— had become one of my main recourses for comfort.
Getting a blessing involves having at least one and preferably two or
three priesthood-holding men carry out a ritual that involves putting
a few drops of consecrated olive oil on the top of your head. Another
man seals the anointing by invoking his priesthood authority and
blesses you with health or wisdom or whatever you’ve asked for.
That night, seeing that I was miserable, Elder Corelli and his mission
companion, Elder Davis, asked me what was wrong. I decided to reveal
some of what I felt. “You know how they say the Book of Mormon is the
yardstick by which all truth should be judged?” I began tentatively.
“I don’t think that’s right.” And I went on to detail my conflict
about art and religion.
To my surprise, they responded with kindness. Elder Davis even told me
I reminded him of his mother, which he meant as a compliment.
Elder Corelli then said with disarming sincerity and kindness, “I love
you, Sister Welker. I think you’re my favorite sister. I really love
you.”
It was the first time any man, except for my father, had told me he
loved me, and I was stunned. It was unexpected but exactly what I
wanted: to be loved and to be someone’s favorite.
A few weeks later I asked for yet another blessing. This time, Elder
Corelli sealed the blessing. He stood with his hands on my head and
didn’t say anything for a good three minutes, which is a long time
when two men are cradling your head in their hands. Then he told me to
be happy, healthy and balanced and to set my priorities in order, and
he said, “By the spirit of the Holy Ghost I would like to, well, to
prophesy that you will be a very important tool in the hand of the
Lord.”
It’s odd to be prophesied about, one of the strange boons of the
church, a sort of affirmation of your cosmic significance, as long as
you’re willing to affirm the cosmic significance of the system
affirming you. It’s this weird mixture of approval and disapproval
that adds up to recognition, as long as you stay in the system.
If you leave, of course, it’s another matter entirely — you’re
nothing, you’re no one, you’re on your own — as I would ultimately
discover. But at the time, it provided comfort, such as it was.
And that comfort helped. At least until a few months later, near the
end of my mission, when a meeting was held in which our mission
president handed down new and seemingly arbitrary standards that
increased our onerous weekly work schedule.
Desperate and confused, I rose to challenge him, actually blurting out
that what he was proposing was “stupid” and “wrong.”
The mission president looked at me in astonished outrage, and the
other missionaries turned shocked expressions upon me as well.
Horrified and ashamed, I turned to leave the chapel.
“We’re going to end this meeting now,” the president announced.
“Sister Welker, sit down!”
Someone grabbed my arm and held me on a pew while we sang the closing
hymn, after which the other missionaries drifted home. But I knew I
had to stay and apologize to the president, and needed to work up the
energy to do it.
FOR a while I sat on a pew in the empty chapel, listening to my
companion play the piano, something she loved but had too few chances
to do — a scene and circumstance that only magnified my feelings of
powerlessness and isolation. Before long, Elder Corelli, who must have
noticed my bicycle still parked outside, wandered in and sat down
beside me.
“President’s really mad at me, isn’t he?” I said.
“I think you hurt his feelings.”
We listened glumly to my companion’s piano playing. Thinking of the
difficult apology before me, I wasn’t anxious, just empty. I knew I
would manage to say what had to be said. But I also knew that with
this episode, my disillusionment with the church was almost complete.
I knew that at the core of my conflict were issues of honesty and
openness and that I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for in the
church I’d worked so hard to persuade others to join, a realization
that wounded me as much as anything in my life.
Greatly in need of comfort and support, I said to Elder Corelli, “I
don’t suppose you’d let me hug you?”
He shook his head. “You know I can’t, Sister Welker.”
I stared at my hands, tangled in my lap. “Can I hold onto your shirt
sleeve, then?”
He nodded, so I grasped the edge of his sleeve between my thumb and
forefinger and held it, trying to pretend it was a form of human
contact that offered any solace.
In any event, it was all I had.
http://www.truthandgrace.com/mormonnews.htm |
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