Saturday, October 27, 2012

We are who we've become: I'm a Mormon Scholar

Most of life is an unplanned journey--unless, of course, you are Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, both who seemed to have planned to be "somebodies" early in their lives. The rest of us have done as much planninng as we could but often have been carried by the currents of the small choices we made. No doubt there were times in which we have surfed the waves, glided above the vallies, and rode fast on the highways of life. But at other times we simply held our breath long enough to finally pop up for air. In each circumstance we've learned a little and possibly grew a lot. Probably done the latter more often in bad times than in good ones.

Each of us has taken a particular road, one often designed by who our parents were, where we lived, and what was happening around us when we came of age. At the same time, most of were not simply dragged by events. We made decisions and took actions. Over time our decision-making made us who we have become. Whether that is what we want to be or not, or whether that's the end, is something unique to each person. But here is part of my story:

When I reminesce about my life I usually start with the memory of a pecan tree in the east back side of the little Mormon church I attended. The building had once been used by Anglo Mormons and in fact was the first Mormon chapel built in San Antonio, Texas. By the time my family came to San Antonio from Mexico, it had become an old building and one relegated to the Mexicans in the church as most White Mormons had moved to the northside.

The importance of the tree, besides the delicious pecans that dropped seasonly, was that it was a place to sit under and think. The church lay behind it, you could see the cars pass on your left and see the barrio people take out the trash on the right. Though the chapel sat on a corner it did have ample space on one side, an alley on another and it shouldered against a branch of the public library on the other, thus providing a contained but large space in which to contemplate life.

What did I think about when I sat under that tree? I thought about being "somebody". At first it was about getting out of poverty, having a house of my own, a good job, and an honorable reputation. But soon as the Mormon teachings dug deep inside, it became about serving God, my fellow(wo)men, and making the world a better place for all of God's children. And it was about personal discipline.

For me, religion became all encompassing by the time I became "active" in church at about the age of 15. Baptized at14, it took me about a year to become fully engaged. Once I did I completely immersed myself in the "gospel". But while doctrines, commandments, and rituals were important, for a young men like me the "everyday theology" became even more meaningful initially because it gave me experiences mostly impossible in my circumstances.

My family was quite poor and while not destitute, we bordered on the edge of economic disaster for years. I was also rather shy and had a horrendous inferiority complex. I had little to look forward to in life in spite of my parent's ambitions for my brother and I until I became a "Mormon boy". Then, I became a scout, a member of the choir, a seminarian, a bishop's messenger, a home teacher, youth leader, second baseman on the softball team, a setter on the volleyball team, a translator, and a part-time missionary. I came out in church plays, participated in speech festivals, attended youth conferences, "counseled" adults and even became a teacher in the church's primary program at age 17 or maybe it was 16.

My literary tastes expanded from biography to religion, scripture, history, science and literature. I also began practicing--in private--giving and writing "talks" which is what most Mormons call preaching. I also became interested in leadership traits, all things often beyond the concern of a teenager in the barrio. All of these came about because of the Mormon concept of "eternal progression", which teaches that there is no limit to learning or to growing intellectually as well as spiritually.

At the same time that I was opening up to a spiritual world, I became interested in the activism occuring in my barrio at the time. San Antonio was torned by racial politics as Mexican Americans fought for their civil rights and simply to be allowed to live in peace. Given my religious views I could not fanthom why anyone would deny someone his/her rights. And why was there so much poverty in a land of plenty? In a short time my religious fervor mingled with my political awakening. Latino Mormonism has always focused strongly on a communitarian brother/sisterhood, and in one's responsibility to the poor and the afflicted.

I had to learn to "live in the world but not be of it" which is probably the hardest thing that a scholar of faith needs to learn. You should be compassionate and charitable yet stand against what you think is wrong even if it is politically or socially unpopular. You can't be seduced by needs of the poor to a point that you are not willing to point out how of their problems are self-inflicted. And you can't be fooled by the piety of the well-to-do and their charitable giving. For the scholar of faith righteousness does not belong to one political party or another, one ideology or the other. Good and evil are found on all sides, yet you don't have the luxury of simply picking "the lesser of two evils".  

The fervor to be in good standing with my God, to help my people, and my love of reading and writing all combined to make me the Chicano/Mormon scholar that I am today. The church gave me the spiritual foundation, the desire to "skill" myself, and the struggle for human rights gave me an earthly purpose. Becoming an activist, community organizer, journalist and then a professor widened my horizons and made me even more sensitive to the world around me.

More importantly, I served as a Mormon bishop twice and that, more than anything else, caused me to look deep inside of me to find out if I truely cared for people; to ask myself if the things I did were good for the people around me or just for me. It made me realize that true personal validation--of the kind that I yearned for as a poor boy--came not from what I accomplished but how I served others. It took time and even now I have not fully integrated those ideas within me but they are always present in the things I do, the books I write and the courses I teach.

I don't know what I would have thought of myself if I could have been able to get a glimpse of my future back then. Given that our youthful imagination and our desires have few limits, I probably would have said, "good start, now let's 'be better than what you have become'". Nonetheless, it is that search to fulfill my youthful desires that keeps me going both as a person and as a scholar.

When we don't understand how we got to where we are and when we don't seek to validate our deepest and most sincere desires we find life less than fulfilling. We all have had our pecan tree and our dreams and it is good to ask ourselves periodically if we are seeking to fulfill them. Sometimes the journey can be as fruitful as the arriving.