Pulling an Adam

          Due to my wife’s strong opinions, I often find myself in uncomfortable situations due to being at odds with my church congregation and co-workers.  Try being a medical worker who believes vaccines are harmful and many are created in a morally reprehensible way.  Not fun.  Standing up to peer pressure is a real difficulty for me and has been a weakness my whole life.  I would much rather just lay low and not attract any attention to myself (which is what I mostly do).  Anyway, as I was saying, I often find myself between polar opposites, with what my co-workers or congregation are doing and what my wife is standing up for.  Stuck between the diverging paths of the ease and comfort of going with the majority and going against the rough grain and getting splinters in undesirable places with my wife, I look at arguments as objectively as I can.  Despite my fear of peer pressure, I know that I am an intelligent person and I may be the only right person in the room.  It takes a lot of convincing (sometimes years, ask my wife) to get me to change my mind, especially a deeply held opinion.  [I must go on a little tangent here, I’ll keep it short.  When I was in Mrs. Wilcox’s 6^th grade class, we were divided into pairs to solve a long division problem.  I was with a friend, Kody.  I did the problem myself, because I like to work alone and I was better at math than Kody, and he seemed perfectly content to let me do the work.  Mrs. Wilcox began going around pair-by-pair asking for the answer.  Everyone had the same answer, which was not the answer that I had reached.  Kody started telling me we should just say whatever everyone else was saying.  I definitely was feeling the pressure, but also wanted to share the answer that I had found.  We were the last to answer.  Literally the entire class had the same answer, which was different than my own.  I took a deep breath, and gave my own answer, and awaited Mrs. Wilcox’s response.  Mrs. Wilcox informed the class, that I was the only one who was right.  I was so glad I had stuck to my guns, and it solidified in my mind to always stick to my own beliefs and my own work.  Which has been a great blessing to me in many instances, but also at times a detriment.]  Back to objectively looking at diverging paths, and going down the easy road or going against the grain with my wife.  Because she explains her arguments well and researches them far beyond what I do, her explanations make a lot of sense.  I am sure you too have had the experience of having someone explain something to you and it either just ringing true or the logic and evidence are simply overwhelming.  Let me say also (because I am sure it has crossed your mind) that this is not just a case of a husband being swayed by his beautiful wife and her wiles.  I offer as evidence the absolute fact that my wife has convinced many people—other than people who are married to her, which of course is only myself—to switch over and agree with her. 

In these days (October 2020), I find myself at odds with many others.  To wear a mask or not to wear a mask?  That is the question.  I try hard not to wear one for several important reasons, which if I try to explain here, this would turn into a different blog post.  Please suffice it to say I have my reasons as an intelligent person, as I am sure you have yours.  We either go places where we are not forced to wear a mask (just asked to, but not forced to, which we politely decline) or get stuff online.  Church has been one those things that we have been able to have online.  But just last night, our Bishop informed us that the blanket authorization for priesthood holders to bless the sacrament in their own home has now come to an end.  So we were faced with a few choices: 1) ask for the authorization to continue in our home, 2) go to church with a mask to be able to take the sacrament, 3) defy what our church leaders have asked and go to church without a mask, or 4) stay home and not go to church and not get the sacrament.  After not going to church since it had been shut down in February or March, we had been feeling the desire to go back to church and see our church brothers and sisters.  I, not wanting to go against the grain, was leaning toward option #2 or #1.  My wife, as usual, was the one who had a restless night stewing over the choice to be made.  She let our Bishop know that she was having a terrible time deciding what to do.  He told her that wearing masks on church property was what the stake presidency and the regional authorities of the church had requested everyone do.  He also said he would not say anything to her if she came without a mask, but he wasn’t sure if the Stake President would or not.  So we got ready for church in case that was what we decided to do.  As we were dressing, we decided to go.  Despite not being quite as averse to donning a mask (although I dislike wearing a mask very much, getting a coronavirus vaccine is where I draw my hard line in the sand), I felt it would be better to be united with my family. 

I began to prepare in my mind what I might say if a leader asked if I was aware of the rules to wear a mask or if I didn’t have a mask and would I wear one if given one, and if I said “no” and they asked me to leave.  None of the options that I was coming up with in my mind seemed like they would have a satisfying or peaceful ending.  Knowing that I get upset in confrontations such as this (mostly because I do not feel I am capable of concisely stating my opinion, or even if given enough time, that I am able to verbally explain my view.  So I asked my wife a question and the way the question came out made me have an epiphany at the same time I asked the question.  I asked, “Do you mind if I pull an Adam?  I mean, do you mind if I just ask them to ask you why we aren’t wearing masks?”  She said she would not mind if I did that.  The question feels like I am throwing our great and first Patriarch under the bus.  The old first passing of the buck he is frequently charged with.  But actually, all my own feelings made me feel a kinship with our father Adam.  Maybe he wasn’t as eloquent and commanding as I had imagined the first prophet and patriarch to be.  Maybe he had learned to rely on the social graces of his help meet--as many men have.  Just maybe the two first humans had an unspoken arrangement, "You handle the awkward social interactions with snake, tiger and bear, and I'll cut the firewood."  Perhaps being confronted by our Heavenly Father asking why he partook of the forbidden fruit, made him as flustered as I would be in a lesser confrontation, and he just blurted out the first thing that he could think of, “The woman thou gavest me, and commandest that she should remain with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat.”  Maybe he thought Eve could explain better the reasoning she had given to him, Adam, for which she had seemingly defied the Almighty’s command to not partake of the forbidden fruit.  Suddenly I was feeling to conceivably be in a similar situation to Adam, and in this case as perhaps his, my wife could stand up for our position better than I could.

So we went to church without masks.  We were the only ones not wearing masks.  One family, sitting a socially distanced bench away from us, got up and moved to the other side of the room (I think the mother in the family might have some immunocompromised situation, either way, to each their own.)  But other than that, we were welcomed by the members and our leaders, for which I am so grateful.  And I cannot wait until, if it ever does, this whole illogical and irrational situation ends.