We meet in a city structure six stories high which has been home to eight units, manageable when we had two chapels. When a temple using all of the fifth and sixth floors and parts of the first and second floors began to take shape in the building, chaos ensued. The three single wards met together (stake conf. every Sunday) and a family ward, a Spanish branch, and a deaf unit began to meet together, every space used at all hours. A new and different church with many things going on that never used to. For me, the transformation is that my jobs are now off the books.
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\nWe meet in a city structure six stories high which has been home to eight units, manageable when we had two chapels. When a temple using all of the fifth and sixth floors and parts of the first and second floors began to take shape in the building, chaos ensued. The three single wards met together (stake conf. every Sunday) and a family ward, a Spanish branch, and a deaf unit began to meet together, every space used at all hours. A new and different church with many things going on that never used to. For me, the transformation is that my jobs are now off the books.<\/p>\n
Gone are routine assignments in the SS, the RS, and what was called the MIA. When I was plucked from the Stake RS to do \u201cspecial assignments,\u201d I realized that I was leaving a job at which I could not fail to take one where I could not succeed. But that\u2019s OK, because the rules are different. Instead of the previously required perfection, we get credit for every tiny achievement. Now no one keeps track of my attendance because I could be anywhere. Now I get to try to deal with city bureaucracies, captains of industry, local agencies. (Scary) Now I value the personal confrontations when people tell me that the Church is not welcome, that our founder was \u201can embarrassment\u201d (thank Bagley, Denton, Krakauer), when we are compared to the KKK. This is the real work at the boundaries of LDS culture, facing the abyss that divides us from the rest of the world, an abyss that we try to bridge.<\/p>\n
Because of the \u201ccrisis of professionalism\u201d in the Church, because we are all trained up to believe that everyone can do anything, I have many unique opportunities. I get to deal with the installation of a plaque honoring the embarkation of the Ship Brooklyn carrying our own NYC pioneers in 1846. I get to chair the Harlem Bridge Building committee. I get to work with the history committee, an ad hoc, unofficial body which once included Taylor Petry and now includes Kristine\u2019s cousin Sara. I got to produce a concert in Carnegie Hall, and for a while there it looked as if I would get to produce the Temple Extravaganza in Giants Stadium. But that event has been downsized, perhaps to nonexistence. I wish everyone had these rewarding opportunities to work at the edges. Let\u2019s encourage the church\u2019s immense resources of good will, energy, and enthusiasm rather than stifling them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We meet in a city structure six stories high which has been home to eight units, manageable when we had two chapels. When a temple using all of the fifth and sixth floors and parts of the first and second floors began to take shape in the building, chaos ensued. The three single wards met together (stake conf. every Sunday) and a family ward, a Spanish branch, and a deaf unit began to meet together, every space used at all hours. A new and different church with many things going on that never used to. For me, the transformation is that my jobs are now off the books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mormon-life"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6510,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/6510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}