Some things are better as a visitor.
It was a gorgeous evening, the sun glowing through the clouds on the western horizon, streaming and dissolving into a fierce, darkening blue. A light breeze nuzzled into my neck as I left my car, whispering and laughing, like an old lover come for dinner. I breathed it in, cherishing the gentle scent of Idaho: wheat and wet barley, sage and grass, a little tinge of dust and the distant river.
Before me unfolded a familiar scene: Astonishingly large buildings for such a small town as Rexburg, BYU-Idaho's campus lay before me. I got out of my car, clicked the door shut. My target: The Snow building, a straightforward assemblage of brick on the north side of campus, the location of the music department. I spent several semesters inside its walls. What would I find there now, five years later?
The smooth, cool metal of the door gave way to my gentle push. Usually entering this building presents a cacophany of sounds, of voices and instruments and plinking pianos, but on this quiet Sunday evening after the end of a semester, it is silent except for my footsteps.
I gaze at the posters on the walls, some of them familiar. I come to the statue of Jesus on the second floor; I avert my gaze. I forget the proper turn and stumble into a side of the building I've never recognized before; perhaps before I finally fled the place five years ago, my curiosity, as so many other things, had been lacking. Nonetheless, this was not where I wished to go.
A few more turns and there it was: the practice hall. A muffled voice and the dampened tunes of a piano thread together a familiar hymn, apropro for a Sunday at BYU-Idaho and yet so foreign and distant, like an old memory that surprises you from behind. I open a door, sit at a piano; my skills are not as sharp as they were a year ago, but I figure out most of the chord progressions for an EDM song by Sia, one I would never have thought to listen to then, yet means so much to me now. "Poetry in your body got it started, it'll never end," I think to myself as I play the song. I do not sing; I don't feel enough courage to confront my broken voice, another strange result despite years of practice and experience. "...Feel the beat in your chest, Beat your chest like an animal...Free the beast from its cage, free the rage like an animal...." The piano feels strange under my fingers. Like stroking the hand of someone that I was once close to, but am no longer.
I sigh. Wistful. Uncomfortable. I leave the practice room, coming to a corner where there used to be a table, is it still there? It is. I gaze where I remember sitting with a girl listening to some of my favorite choral music, what was that song called? I remember the story that went with it, that made it meaningful to me, even if the name escapes me. How silly it all seems now, and yet I know if I listened to it again I would feel the same way about it.
So many feelings wash over me. Gentle sadness mists my eyes, enfolds my heart like a still pool of cool water. I let it guide my hands to the door that leads outside, and now I am on the sidewalk, looking at an official school poster in a display. "We are disciples of Jesus Christ," it proudly declares. I smile a little at that. Untried aspirations do not make for a good identity, I've found. Self-defeat in that case is guaranteed.
What an interesting place, I think to myself, as I walk back to my car and look out at the buildings surrounding me. I was not curious then; I knew what the place represented, and that was that. But I have changed, and I am curious now. I am surrounded by aspirations, gazing at them from the outside, examining them like a book presented to me by an eager and precious friend who wishes to share it with me so I can like it too. But now, they are other people's aspirations, and I look at the book, let out an appreciative grunt, and give it back with a gracious smile and a nod and no intention to peruse it further. I am surrounded by good things and bad things mixed together in a salad that I don't quite like enough to order regularly.
Ah, BYU-Idaho. A strange place. A harsh place. As a wide-eyed freshman with no experience outside the Idaho Mormon envelope, I came to the place expecting heaven, but found it to be much like its climate; cold and forbidding, with just enough warmth a few months out of the year to be hospitable. I came to the place expecting a spiritual feast, and found it like the cupboards in my apartments: a few crackers, some white bread and peanut butter, enough to live on but not near enough to thrive on. I came expecting the shoe to fit, because why wouldn't it? It always had. And then, for some reason I am still not sure of, it didn't. And I didn't. I didn't thrive. I didn't feast. I didn't fit. It nearly killed me, few people noticed, and fewer cared.
Much has changed now, and I hold no ill will towards BYU-Idaho, but nonetheless, the place that proudly proclaims "We are disciples of Jesus Christ" was one of the places where I felt so distant from the love of the God I feel when I pray. There was little warmth or trust to be found in most classes or social functions, little companionship, few if any to mourn with me as I mourned the loss of my familial aspirations and eventually my professional musical aspirations. I don't blame the school, as I know that it is not responsible for my well being, but nonetheless, finding so little support in a community that has as its entire basis a covenant to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort is a betrayal that I am not sure I will ever get over.
I sighed with relief as my brief visit ended and the school folded into the horizon in my rearview mirror. I am on a different journey now. I am in a profession I love and fits my abilities, I am surrounded by friends who love me and whom I love, and I feel so much more open to what life has to bring now than I ever had. I am just sad that I never learned that lesson at BYU-Idaho. That the place that claims discipleship could betray that ideal as deeply as it did for me.
But that's the thing. It's an ideal. We all fail to live up to our ideals. Why not an institution? Mormonism has brought me so many gifts, and so much pain. If it did not have room to grow, would it really be worthwhile?
I am grateful for what I learned from my time at BYU-Idaho. There is much that is worthwhile about it. There is much worthwhile about the Church; God has spoken to me through Mormonism and that will always mean something to me, and I will never abandon that entirely. I love the aspirations of the Church, and have grace for its failures, but I am no longer willing to let it govern me. Sometimes gratitude means leaving something behind. Sometimes, hope means putting on a new pair of shoes and continuing onward. Sometimes, things don't work, and we have to step into something different, something unknown to find something that does. Sometimes we have to humble ourselves and search what we once thought we knew, and leave some of it behind. Some things are better passed on the road in life. Some burdens are meant for others to bear. Some things are better as a visitor.
Before me unfolded a familiar scene: Astonishingly large buildings for such a small town as Rexburg, BYU-Idaho's campus lay before me. I got out of my car, clicked the door shut. My target: The Snow building, a straightforward assemblage of brick on the north side of campus, the location of the music department. I spent several semesters inside its walls. What would I find there now, five years later?
The smooth, cool metal of the door gave way to my gentle push. Usually entering this building presents a cacophany of sounds, of voices and instruments and plinking pianos, but on this quiet Sunday evening after the end of a semester, it is silent except for my footsteps.
I gaze at the posters on the walls, some of them familiar. I come to the statue of Jesus on the second floor; I avert my gaze. I forget the proper turn and stumble into a side of the building I've never recognized before; perhaps before I finally fled the place five years ago, my curiosity, as so many other things, had been lacking. Nonetheless, this was not where I wished to go.
A few more turns and there it was: the practice hall. A muffled voice and the dampened tunes of a piano thread together a familiar hymn, apropro for a Sunday at BYU-Idaho and yet so foreign and distant, like an old memory that surprises you from behind. I open a door, sit at a piano; my skills are not as sharp as they were a year ago, but I figure out most of the chord progressions for an EDM song by Sia, one I would never have thought to listen to then, yet means so much to me now. "Poetry in your body got it started, it'll never end," I think to myself as I play the song. I do not sing; I don't feel enough courage to confront my broken voice, another strange result despite years of practice and experience. "...Feel the beat in your chest, Beat your chest like an animal...Free the beast from its cage, free the rage like an animal...." The piano feels strange under my fingers. Like stroking the hand of someone that I was once close to, but am no longer.
I sigh. Wistful. Uncomfortable. I leave the practice room, coming to a corner where there used to be a table, is it still there? It is. I gaze where I remember sitting with a girl listening to some of my favorite choral music, what was that song called? I remember the story that went with it, that made it meaningful to me, even if the name escapes me. How silly it all seems now, and yet I know if I listened to it again I would feel the same way about it.
So many feelings wash over me. Gentle sadness mists my eyes, enfolds my heart like a still pool of cool water. I let it guide my hands to the door that leads outside, and now I am on the sidewalk, looking at an official school poster in a display. "We are disciples of Jesus Christ," it proudly declares. I smile a little at that. Untried aspirations do not make for a good identity, I've found. Self-defeat in that case is guaranteed.
What an interesting place, I think to myself, as I walk back to my car and look out at the buildings surrounding me. I was not curious then; I knew what the place represented, and that was that. But I have changed, and I am curious now. I am surrounded by aspirations, gazing at them from the outside, examining them like a book presented to me by an eager and precious friend who wishes to share it with me so I can like it too. But now, they are other people's aspirations, and I look at the book, let out an appreciative grunt, and give it back with a gracious smile and a nod and no intention to peruse it further. I am surrounded by good things and bad things mixed together in a salad that I don't quite like enough to order regularly.
Ah, BYU-Idaho. A strange place. A harsh place. As a wide-eyed freshman with no experience outside the Idaho Mormon envelope, I came to the place expecting heaven, but found it to be much like its climate; cold and forbidding, with just enough warmth a few months out of the year to be hospitable. I came to the place expecting a spiritual feast, and found it like the cupboards in my apartments: a few crackers, some white bread and peanut butter, enough to live on but not near enough to thrive on. I came expecting the shoe to fit, because why wouldn't it? It always had. And then, for some reason I am still not sure of, it didn't. And I didn't. I didn't thrive. I didn't feast. I didn't fit. It nearly killed me, few people noticed, and fewer cared.
Much has changed now, and I hold no ill will towards BYU-Idaho, but nonetheless, the place that proudly proclaims "We are disciples of Jesus Christ" was one of the places where I felt so distant from the love of the God I feel when I pray. There was little warmth or trust to be found in most classes or social functions, little companionship, few if any to mourn with me as I mourned the loss of my familial aspirations and eventually my professional musical aspirations. I don't blame the school, as I know that it is not responsible for my well being, but nonetheless, finding so little support in a community that has as its entire basis a covenant to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort is a betrayal that I am not sure I will ever get over.
I sighed with relief as my brief visit ended and the school folded into the horizon in my rearview mirror. I am on a different journey now. I am in a profession I love and fits my abilities, I am surrounded by friends who love me and whom I love, and I feel so much more open to what life has to bring now than I ever had. I am just sad that I never learned that lesson at BYU-Idaho. That the place that claims discipleship could betray that ideal as deeply as it did for me.
But that's the thing. It's an ideal. We all fail to live up to our ideals. Why not an institution? Mormonism has brought me so many gifts, and so much pain. If it did not have room to grow, would it really be worthwhile?
I am grateful for what I learned from my time at BYU-Idaho. There is much that is worthwhile about it. There is much worthwhile about the Church; God has spoken to me through Mormonism and that will always mean something to me, and I will never abandon that entirely. I love the aspirations of the Church, and have grace for its failures, but I am no longer willing to let it govern me. Sometimes gratitude means leaving something behind. Sometimes, hope means putting on a new pair of shoes and continuing onward. Sometimes, things don't work, and we have to step into something different, something unknown to find something that does. Sometimes we have to humble ourselves and search what we once thought we knew, and leave some of it behind. Some things are better passed on the road in life. Some burdens are meant for others to bear. Some things are better as a visitor.
Comments
Post a Comment