It’s definitely NOT MY JOB to tell speakers what to talk about in General Conference. Still. I won’t lie. There are things I’d like to hear when Mormons all over the world tune in to listen to their church leaders. Here are a few:
1. Yea! We’re doing away with the three-hour “block” schedule. Here’s the deal. Active Latter-day Saints attend meetings for at least three hours in a row on Sundays. Whenever I whine about this reality to my husband, he asks if I’d rather do things the way we did when we were kids — namely, go to Sunday School, go home, and then go back to church that evening for sacrament meeting. Those were long days, too, especially if the bishop asked somebody super-long-winded to say the closing prayer.
So, no, I don’t want to go back to that. It’s just that when you’re as ADHD as I am — and I’m serious about this — sitting still is physically painful. Two hours is my absolute limit for everything and anything in this life.
2. We want you to come as you are right now. Who cares where you are and what you’re wearing? And who cares if you don’t believe everything you hear over the pulpit or within the walls of a classroom? If, for whatever reason, you’ve decided you want to be at church, then be at church. Come. We’re all pilgrims So why not give one another a lift while we’re on this bumpy road together?
3. We want you to keep giving back to your community — and any community — that needs your help. Actually, if you don’t count smiling Pastor Joel “Jesus wants you and me to be rich” Osteen’s embarrassingly lame response to Harvey, the religious communities of the Southeast have been awesome in the wake of the current hurricane season, standing shoulder to shoulder while offering shelter, supplies and support. Members of my son’s Mormon congregation and neighboring LDS wards in Houston have gone out of their way to lend assistance to any and all in need, including my son’s family. Now that’s the Good News in action, folks.
4. We expect you to root out white supremacy wherever you see it growing. After President Donald Trump’s tepid response to the presence of neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Va. (sad), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints condemned white supremacy forcefully and eloquently. Given its own troubled past with race relations — and the fact that certain Mormon bloggers today use church teachings to promote the notion that people of European descent are being culturally displaced by people of color — the LDS Church cannot fail to make this point often enough.
5. We urge you to embrace the good and the beautiful wherever you find it. Mormon founder Joseph Smith himself said as much when he wrote the 13th Article of Faith: “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul — we believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” I have always loved the rolling language and ecumenical sentiment of this paragraph. They’re words to live by, even when I don’t.
So. There it is. My wish list. I seriously doubt the LDS Church will do away with the three-hour block, which means I’ll have to keep sneaking out for a walk up and down the street between Sunday school and Relief Society SO I WON’T LOSE MY MIND.
But I’m pretty sure I’ll hear versions of everything else here.