Let me tell you why I started this web site, I don’t like the word “blog”, it sounds like I am drowning. “Bloggernacle” is even worse, sounds like barnacle.
I’ve been a member of the church for quite a few years. If my kid was born in the year when I was baptized, it would be my oldest kid by far, and it would almost be a Millennial, but not quite. It would barely be a Zoomer, like my other (real) kids.
For many years, we were thrilled by people you sent us. Nice people. Pleasant people. Faithful people. Smart people.
But then, you started to send us all kinds of rather awkward Mission Presidents, green Missionary Couples, flamboyant Missionaries (returned or otherwise), old-time Balkan members who had been active before they left for Utah but they weren’t when they came back, old-time Balkan members who hadn’t been active before they left for Utah but then they were when they came back, apostates who thought they were important, and so on.
So I said to myself, what the h*** (heck) is going on, and started to study American Mormon culture all over again in general, and it’s Utah flavor particular. I wanted to understand where all those newly interesting people are coming from, literally and figuratively.
I say “all over again” because I had studied American Mormon culture thoroughly many years ago, at about the time of my baptism, and I was quite impressed. I liked it. Some of you were giving me warnings, by I didn’t take them all that seriously.
I left my research there & then & I returned to live the best aspects of my Balkan culture as much as humanly possible, given the circumstances of me being a faithful Latter-day Saint, because I was supposed to disregard bad aspects of it at least nominally, weren’t I?
So, after you started to send us all those interesting people, I again did the research of the most contemporary incarnation of the Mormon culture, and I ended up being equally impressed, but for a different reason.
The greatest bone of contention among members of the Church is gay & trans issue? Really?
In the Balkan culture, we have no problem with gay & trans issues. We simply ignore it as if it doesn’t exist, as we do with every other issue under the sun.
“Mom, I’m gay.”
“Okay. Go to the groceries, we need potatoes. Money is under the telly.”
“Mom, I’m in transition.”
“Whatever, but return home for dinner.”
“Mom, I’m committed a genocide.”
“Sure. Go and pick up your sister from kindergarten.”
I remember, some years ago, while I was serving as a Branch President, an Area Authority Seventy came to visit us for a training session, and at the very beginning of the training, he started to explain the details of church’s official stance on gay marriage.
Me and other Branch Presidents who were present there, looked at each other in disbelief, which we later repented, because we were supposed to be believing, especially before the member of the Seventy.
“Thank you, Elder Seventy, for your clarification. We do have gay people in our branches, but so far, none of them have plans or intentions to marry. When they begin to express such intentions, we’ll let you know. Now, let’s move on to the next subject.”
And so, I decided that it is high time for me to start this, ahm, blog, so that, when you read it and then you come here, you are at least a tad less awkward etc.
That’s the theory. Let’s see how this will turn into practice.