Joseph Smith Has a Good PR Person

It was like when suddenly there were two musicals based on the same poem by Joseph Moncure March, "The Wild Party".

Ideas happen in waves.

And everyone is writing about young Mormons in the dc area.

This appeared today.

And this was in the City paper this week.

The City paper article is extremely engaging. One of the women they quoted came in to audition for me the other day. She was very sweet and I looked at her resume and saw that she had gone to Utah State. I told her I had spent some time at Southern Utah University, visiting various friends in Cedar City at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. I almost made a joke about seeing the "founder's day parade" there (which was a bizarre experience -- so many very, very, white, blonde, people, that I was a little frightened). I refrained from saying anything, in case she was indeed Mormon and would take offense to my observation -- and sure enough the next day she appears in this article.

Small world.

I actually have several Mormons in my life whom I adore. One of my best friends from college converted after marrying a Mormon. The story of their union should be made into a movie someday, it is so "against the odds" and unusual -- but they are two of the loveliest and most in love people I know. And so very happy. I worked with a Mormon set designer this past year and when I found out he was Mormon I about leaped into his seat, babbling on and on about my Mormon friends, and how does he feel about mixing his spiritual and secular worlds, and what are his thoughts about women's roles in the Mormon church. He backed off a bit and I realized that I had pretty much just met him and was assuming a familiarity that I hadn't earned ( I do that sometimes. Bite your tongue SAS, think first, then speak.) I even asked him about the whole writing the names of Jews who had died in the Holocaust in the secret books that would mean their "souls were saved" because they were essentially converted in the afterlife. Designer man kind of rolled his eyes. It must be tough to be part of a community much maligned by the actions of a few.

The Mormon church is intriguing. It seems so borderline cult-like, and yet Mormon followers are some of the most committed worshipers I know. Hanging out with Mormons gives me the sense that they get something I don't. Maybe it is something that goes on in those mysterious temples.

But the plight that is described in the City paper article is a real one. The easy answer would be -- if you don't want to feel ostracized and alienated for being single past the age of thirty, then don't be a Mormon! But what if that is the home someone has found and a belief system that they are truly committed to. What then?

And is it really all that different outside of the Mormon community?