Over the past almost five months that I’ve lived in Utah, I have experienced a phenomenon and trial that I never expected to have to face and I have come to sum up my experience with one single question: why is it so much harder to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah than anywhere else?
Never in my life, including when I was actually inactive, have I found it so difficult to be an active and participating member of the church. This doesn’t mean that I have come to believe any less in the principles and truths of the gospel; I know that this is the true church and that this gospel is the same one that Jesus Christ himself established here on the earth. The Spirit testifies to me of gospel truths on a regular basis; this phenomenon has little to do with the actual substance of the gospel and much more to do with the culture of church members.
You would think that living in a place where there are church buildings every two blocks and entire apartment complexes filled with only members of the church, where you can easily spot at least eight temples within an hour and a half drive along the same highway, where they ask you for applicable mission experiences in job interviews rather than on-the-job experiences, where if a temple recommend is spotted on the ground it’s not just mistaken for trash, where everybody knows what a CTR ring is, where coffee shops have more than just one non-coffee or tea drink and even versions without coffee in them, you would think in a place like this that it would be easy to be a member of the church.
But perhaps that is exactly why it isn’t.
I have been living in Orem for almost five months and I have no more LDS friends here now than when I first arrived. Of course I have acquaintances and people to talk to at church, but I don’t have any friends. I haven’t ever fit in the box in a church sense and I was expecting to not fit in, but the box is a lot bigger here and I think at some point I got tossed in and forgotten. Not just me though; I think at some point the box got so big that everybody got tossed in without any sort of care or inventory check, like that box of papers you’re not sure you’ll need when you move so you keep all of them just in case and then never look at them again. It begs the question: is this how Heavenly Father intended life to be?
I know it isn’t.
We were each created with a divine purpose; Heavenly Father knew exactly what He was doing when He created each of us. He made us individually; sculpted our spirits from some divine existential matter, and sent us here to earth to live out our specially modified lives and be unlike anybody else.
Why, then, don’t I feel that way? Why, in the midst of all these people that are aware of that same truth, do I feel like a number? Like a piece of paper that may or may not matter in the grand scheme of things? Why is it so easy to get lost in the crowd? And why is it so hard to connect with other members of the church?
I have a theory.
We’ll call it the Big Box Theory.
It revolves around the idea that the bigger the box, the less important each of the things inside becomes.
We were each sent here to earth individually, sometimes in twos, sometimes threes, even up to eight, but we each made our entrance into the world independently. Our spirits are each housed in their own bodies. In essence, we all came down in our own box, wrapped by Heavenly Father himself (I can only imagine with lots of help from Heavenly Mother). How important then, does that make each of us?
Immeasurably and completely and totally. The most important creation Heavenly Father has ever made is you.
This Big Box is not a creation of Heavenly Father. The Big Box comes from somewhere else. *points down*
The Big Box takes all the significance of one of our individual boxes and distributes it over everything inside, so rather than using two scoops of hot chocolate powder in one glass of milk, it puts two scoops of hot chocolate powder in more than 16,000,000 glasses worth of milk, and I’m no scientist but something tells me that hot chocolate is going to taste a lot like milk.
Perhaps even worse than the Big Box itself, is the Big Barrier it creates between those inside and those outside. Heavenly Father is very organized, but I’m pretty sure He’s not the one that organized all the members of the church into one box and everyone else into another. *points down again*
If any additional boxes should exist, it should be one Behemoth Box that includes all of humanity because whether you realize it or not, members and non-members alike are all human and deserve to be treated as such.
It has been overwhelming the number of people I have met, whether in the workplace or otherwise, that have been surprised to hear that I am a member of the church, not because I don’t strive to live the gospel, but because I do. I strive to live the gospel that I know and love, and the gospel that I know and love has nothing to do with boxes.
The gospel that I know and love includes everybody; it encourages love and empathy; it helps people when they’re down, whether they’re a member of the church or not. The gospel that I know and love doesn’t distinguish between classes, or status, or spirituality. The gospel that I know and love isn’t rote; it’s real.
The teachings of Jesus Christ, the Plan of Salvation, the Restoration of the gospel, the sacred work done in temples, praying and reading the scriptures and fasting, and above all, loving one another: that is my gospel. I refuse to let Satan think that I, or anybody else, belong in a box besides the one and only unique packaging in which Heavenly Father sent me.
Sometimes it’s easier to look at the towering walls that have been built up around us and turn the other way. It’s easy to forget about our own specific purpose and worth when we can’t see the purpose and worth of others around us, but in the end, the Big Box is made of cardboard. Just take it down.
I don’t imagine this will probably reach that many people, and I really don’t imagine that it will make some immense change happen in the world, but this realization has helped start an immense change in me and I am determined to do my part in living the way Christ would have me live and recognizing not only my own value, but the value of each Spirit with which I come in contact.
I love the gospel. I love Jesus Christ. I love Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. I am so grateful for the strength I receive each day from the knowledge of these things and more and I can only hope to improve and change continually to become the person I am meant to be, and I encourage you to do so as well, whoever you are, wherever you are, whether you believe in God or not. The only way any of us is going to get out of this Big Box is by deciding to do it for ourselves. I know that we can.
