“What e’er thou art, act well thy part.” David O. McKay’s famous line motivated him during his mission and during his presidency. It’s not a bad philosophy, either. If I’m a Mormon, I should be a good one. However, for many of us, the question isn’t acting well a part. It’s discovering what we are to begin with.<\/p>\n
Under the classic McKay formulation, I might say, I’m a Mormon, and so I should act well the part — I should go to church on Sunday, and magnify my calling, and avoid coffee, and so on. That’s acting well the part of a Mormon. Seems simple enough. <\/p>\n
But what if what I “art” isn’t just, “a Mormon,” but is instead, “a Liberal Mormon.” In that case, perhaps I should wear blue shirts, dicth Sunday School sometimes, and read books by Mike Quinn. On the other hand, if what I art is “an Orthodox Mormon,” then maybe I should avoid birth control, read McConkie, and forward Clinton-bashing e-mails to my friends. Or would that make me a Conservative Mormon? Is that the same thing? How do I know what the categories are, anyway? And how do I decide which box I’m really supposed to put myself into? If category determines action, then the initial category decision becomes all-important. What if I misplace myself? The whole approach is reminiscent of a running gag in Galaxy Quest, when one character isn’t sure whether he’s supposed to be the cannon fodder, or the comic relief — his fate depends on which pre-determined category he’s supposed to fill. <\/p>\n
At least for me, a different approach makes more sense: My actions define who I am. True, it can be helpful to know what some pre-set categories are, and what would make for good membership in some category. But ultimately, it is through my actions — how I do my part — that I discover or decide who I am. Thus, “what e’er thou art” isn’t a fixed, independent variable that determines the rest. Instead, it’s as changing and dependent as any other. To borrow from that overplayed Green Day song, I am still becoming who I am. <\/p>\n
And I find out more about who I am by the parts that I choose to play, and by how well I ultimately play them, and how I feel after playing them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“What e’er thou art, act well thy part.” David O. McKay’s famous line motivated him during his mission and during his presidency. It’s not a bad philosophy, either. If I’m a Mormon, I should be a good one. However, for many of us, the question isn’t acting well a part. It’s discovering what we are to begin with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3906","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}