dianaschnuth

I used to write about my deconversion from Mormonism a lot more than I do now — I guess I don’t really think about it much anymore. But something that Bill Shunn tweeted earlier this week caught my attention and triggered a memory from years ago, in the days when my deconversion was still fresh and new.

I spent quite a while online this evening, searching for the particular video clip from the Animated Stories of the Book of Mormon™ that I blogged about back in July of 2004, but it doesn’t seem to be posted anywhere.

Still, even without the accompanying video clip to illustrate, I wanted to repost this excerpt from the recesses of my blog:

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A couple years ago, I actually picked up Volume I of the Book of Mormon Stories VHS set at Goodwill. I made Aaron watch it, too—actually, he was kind of curious. And he was flabbergasted when the climax of the story came about, too. To capitulate: Nephi and his dad and brothers are about to split Jerusalem, but they have to get the record of their family (inscribed on a set of brass plates) from this evil dude named Laban, who owns them. So, Nephi is scared shitless, but he knows he has to come up with something. And, lucky Nephi—when he walks up to Laban’s house, guess who is shitfaced drunk? Yup. Now, in the words of 1 Nephi, Chapter 4:

10. And it came to pass that I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.

11. And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property.

…

18. Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.

At which point Aaron says, “What?!” Having assumed, of course, that it was only a test, and that God wouldn’t ask Nephi to kill the drunk dude, then put on his clothes and pretend to be him to get the brass plates from his servant. Heh.

Once again, I find myself with some time on my hands here at work. I actually have a cache of blog topics to choose from, for just such an occasion.

When I was a young church-going lass, there was a boy who was several years older than me. The oldest of the Headrick kids — I forget his name. Mom would know, since I think she taught him in Sunday School. At any rate, he was a “normal” kid: kind of soft-spoken, as I recall, and particularly tall. He had one thing besides his height that set him apart, though, and that was his predilection for bow ties. Mormon men and boys, as a general rule, wear standard neckties to church, so his bow ties made him stand out.

When he turned 18, he was called to be a missionary, as all good Mormon boys should be. He was sent out to the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Utah… and the next time we saw him, he was wearing a normal necktie. Apparently, missionaries are required to wear neckties, and his cache of bowties were forbidden during his mission. I don’t know whether he ever wore his bow ties again, after he returned from his mission two years later.

I always thought that was just a little tragic. I understand the need for uniformity, but I’ve always wondered if the MTC managed to completely eradicate that one facet of Elder Headrick’s uniqueness.

I can’t believe I’ve never posted this poem before. I searched my site for it, though, and apparently I never have. My mother taught me this poem when I was little, and I’ve seen slight variations of the poem and its backstory in the years since. I believe Mom found it in a newspaper article and copied it down back in the mid to late 70s. This is how I remember it (with some help from the internet):

This poem was given to an English teacher by a 16-year-old student. It is not known whether he wrote the poem. It is known that he committed suicide two weeks later.

He always wanted to explain things.
But no one cared.
So he drew.
Sometimes he would draw and it wasn’t anything.
He wanted to carve it in stone
Or write it in the sky.
He would lie out on the grass
And look up at the sky
And it would be only him and the sky
And the things inside him that needed saying.
It was after that
He drew the picture.
It was a beautiful picture.
He kept it under his pillow
And would let no one see it.
And he would look at it every night
And think about it.
And when it was dark
And his eyes were closed
He could still see it.
And it was all of him,
And he loved it.
When he started school he brought it with him —
Not to show anyone, but just to have it with him
Like a friend.

It was funny about school:
He sat in a square brown desk
Like all the other square brown desks
And he thought it should be red.
And his room was a square brown room
Like all the other rooms
And it was tight and close
And stiff.
He hated to hold the pencil and chalk
With his arms stiff and his feet flat on the floor
Stiff
With the teacher watching
And watching.
The teacher came and smiled at him.
She told him to wear a tie
Like all the other boys.
He said he didn’t like them.
And she said it didn’t matter!
After that they drew.
And he drew all yellow
And it was the way he felt about morning
And it was beautiful.
The teacher came and smiled at him.
“What’s this?” she said.
“Why don’t you draw something like Ken’s drawing?”
“Isn’t that beautiful?”

After that his mother bought him a tie
And he always drew airplanes and rocket ships
Like everyone else
And he threw the old picture away.
And when he lay out alone and looked out at the sky
It was big and blue and all of everything.
But he wasn’t anymore.
He was square inside and brown.
And his hands were stiff
And he was like everyone else.
And the things inside him that needed saying
Didn’t need it anymore.
It had stopped pushing.
It was crushed.
Stiff.
Like everything else.