When the teacher got up and stated that she wasn't going to take comments during the lesson today, I should have taken that as a bad sign.
She started off talking about health, and our bodies being from God. She went on to say that there are many ways to misuse the body, being overweight, eating unhealthily, blah, blah, blah, and she said that one of the results of sin is sickness. (Okay, HUGE problems with that. What about Job? And Christ told his disciples that those around Him were sick to increase their faith, not as a punishment to their parents for sin. I have a huge problem with anyone relating sickness to sin. And, I have M.S., so, I am a little biased. I don't think that I did anything to deserve being sick.)
The teacher went on to say that she had recently lost some weight, and had never felt more spiritually connected to Heavenly Father. (Okay, I can see that, because you are feeling better about yourself, so you would have a better self esteem, and that will improve your relationships with everyone. And even though I think it's not appropriate to base your entire Relief Society lesson around your weight loss experience, that is one of the things that we have to accept with an untrained clergy, and the church organized the way it is.)[For those not LDS, Relief Society is like a Sunday School class for women over the age of 18.]
My mind was wandering, so I missed her exact transition, if she had one, but she puts magazine photos of three different types of meals on the whiteboard. The first was a bread, green beans, a chicken breast, and jello. The second was plain rice, black beans, sliced mushrooms, and steak. The third was seasoned rice, fruit salad, green beans with almonds sliced on top, and a roll. Only one of these meals is appropriate food for our bodies she says. I look at them and from the Word of Wisdom's perspective the last one would be most appropriate, it having the least amount of meat. But, no. She says the middle one. Yes. All of our meals should be of bacon, sausage, hamburger, steak, pork, etc., because, fruit and vegetables ferment in our bodies. Yes, they ferment and turn into wine.
For example, she pointed to a candle warmer, and a glass of water filled with chopped up pieces of apple. She had been cooking this mush at approximately 101 degrees for the past three days. She said that she would pass around the glass at the end of class so we could smell for ourselves what happens to fruit when it goes through our digestive systems, and what we are subjecting our poor livers to when we eat fruit. (Okay, first of all, if this were true, it is the way God made it, and therefore, it's the way it's supposed to work! But, it isn't true, because: 1) Sure, that happens when an apple sits in WATER, but our digestive systems are ACIDIC, so the apple is digested; and 2) I don't know about the rest of ya'all but things like apples don't sit in my stomach for three days, there are muscles around that whole system that make things move. Second, I have of late, become rather educated about livers. Yes, they do filter out bad stuff, but there are a lot of things that we should be more worried about than APPLES!!!)
Hands went up all over the place. I don't know if people were agreeing with her, I rather hope and believe that they were disagreeing with her. But as she went on and on spewing unholy crap out of her mouth, pretty soon most of the group had their hands up. At that point, the Relief Society President stood up and said, "Sister Blahblah asked that there not be any comments during her lesson. Please abide by her wishes."
HELLO! It's been a while, but when I was in the Relief Society Presidency they begged us to interrupt if the teacher ever began teaching something that was not true, incorrect or basically false doctrine. What happened to fruit of the vine?
So, yeah, after the R.S. Pres. basically endorsed what was being taught, I thought that I needed to give my anti-endorsement. So I walked out. There were probably a million other level-headed things I could have done... but, they weren't coming to mind.
Good for you walking out. Please tell me you made a scene while doing so. Better yet, please tell me that you uttered something along the lines of "This is utter rubbish" as you you bent over to pick up all your items one by one to draw as much attention away from the instructor as possible. Best yet, please tell me that on your way out the door, you muttered "It's because of bullshit instructors like you that I don't come to church more regularly." Then you would be my absolutest hero. Of course, because you left, you already are my hero.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I didn't make any noise. I was sitting in the back, near the door. And I didn't have to walk over anyone to get out.
ReplyDeleteI was mostly upset with the R.S. Presidency for not exerting some sort of ecclesiastical control, which they could have so easily done with a comment like "Let's take a few comments, perhaps someone has some spiritual insight to share." Or an mild interruption of "The scriptures say..." or "The manual reads..." I would have stayed through the anti-Word-of-Wisdom lesson if any of those things had happened.
Oh.
ReplyDeleteMy.
Gosh.
My jaw dropped progressively lower and lower as I read this.
Yeah, just. Wow. I'm sure you did the only reasonably thing you could do, given the circumstances.
And the only thing I can even think of in the RS Presidency's defense is that maybe they just weren't sure what to do, and thought it might turn into a bloodbath or the (obviously not sane) teacher would have a breakdown if someone disagreed with her. But yeah, let's hope they bring the smack down on Why We Teach From the Flipping Manual, You Psycho.
Wow.
Thanks Nemesis. I just hope that at the next R.S. Board meeting they do some heavy duty teacher training.
ReplyDeleteI think that when you were walking out you should have muttered under your breath but so everyone could easily hear "And you still look a little hippy, sinner."
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought the "being chaste is like being a pristine roll of Charmin toilet paper analogy, later climaxing in pulling out actual rolls of Charmin and draping it on sisters while declaring "You're charmin'!" was bad. (And not to mention anti-accurate: Does that make married women USED charmin?)
My dear, you continue to fight a good fight and bring handheld electronic Yahtzee.