A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a stake ambitiously decided to mount a production of Handel’s Messiah. A large choir is assembled and practices for many months–the better part of a year. The director, a local member, has a Ph.D. in music, and tears his hair out trying to get the voices of the choir to bend to his will. Four soloists from among the singers are selected. Musicians are hired to play the brass parts and some of the strings that can’t be handled by local talent. A large number of people pour blood, sweat and tears into this event. As the performance approaches, many non-LDS are invited to attend, and many do. There is a full house.
Finally, in December, the night of the performance comes. The performance is admittedly pretty spotty and won’t make anyone forget about the MTC, but considering that virtually all the performers are rank amateurs it is well done–a triumph, even.
As the last note is played, a counselor in the Stake Presidency approaches the podium. Surely he will rain kudos on the director, the soloists, the instrumentalists and the choir for their long hours of preparation. Perhaps he will provide flowers to the soloists. Perhaps he will offer commentary on the scripturally-based libretto, and tie it into the coming Christmas season. We all wait with anticipation.
With not a word spoken about the choir or its two-hour performance, he proceeds to regale the audience with tales of the wonders of Wood Badge, a scouting leadership training program. A Wood Badge course had just concluded, and he chooses this setting to honor those who had graduated. He calls their names, one by one, and asks them to stand and be recognized.
And then he sits down. Not a word is spoken about the choir or its efforts. And the closing prayer is given, and we all go home.
September 25, 2006 at 11:05 am
Awesome. Completely awesome. You were blessed, Kevin, to hear one of the Lord’s local oracles. Why did you harden your heart against the Wood Badge-rs?
September 25, 2006 at 11:42 am
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!
Niiiiice.
September 25, 2006 at 12:01 pm
As I read this post, I was afraid that the other shoe about to drop was some comment about the non-worshipful (or is it irreverent) sound made by the trumpet.
September 25, 2006 at 12:24 pm
I once had a similar experience. The meeting I was attending was supposed to be a missionary homecoming/prep presentation. Instead the first half hour was spent presenting the Wood Badge to a member of the Stake Presidency, it was very weird. What the hell is the Wood Badge anyway???
September 25, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Three weeks ago this website had a post on “Books I Have a Testimony Of.” I thought at the time of commenting with a wisecrack that maybe the folks with a testimony of Wood Badge could get a break now, but I didn’t want to disrupt the tone.
September 25, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Jared E.,
Wood Badge is official training sponsored by the BSA wherein new scout leaders are instructed in their duties. In the one I attended, the training consisted mostly of badmouthing the was the LDS church implements scouting.
September 25, 2006 at 1:04 pm
I’d like to say that I’m surprised, but I’m not. Music and Church Leadership have seemed to have had an uneasy truce at best since my involvement in Church choirs. It gets annoying sometimes.
Some years back, I was involved with the local Institute Choir. We had an excellent director — a since-retired voice/opera professor from the college that I’ve worked with before and since — and our major performances of the year were when we would provide the music for the adult sessions of Stake Conference. This particular year, we spent the last half of the year rehearsing “A Marvelous Work,” the text of which was writen by Gerald Lund. It’s a very nice piece where the text is derived from D&C 4, and then played along side the text and music of “The Spirit of God.” Ten days before Stake Conference, and on our second-to-last rehearsal before this performance (and right in the middle of the week prior to finals for the students that comprised most of the choir), we were told that the visiting GA had indicated that we were not to sing this particular piece, so we warmed up a hymnal arrangement of “How Firm a Foundation” that’s quite nice, but which we’d performed the year before. With a lot of scrambling, and a bit of fudging, it was adequate, but nothing like the other would have been.
My hunch is that our original number was quashed because it wasn’t (seen to be) a hymnal arrangement.
September 25, 2006 at 1:13 pm
I thought wood badge was what Sir Bedevere suggested they make after the wood rabbit plan failed…
Oh, I see. The “e” is silent.
September 25, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Last Christmas, my US ward was graced with an excellent a capella performance of carols from a local and fairly prestigious male choir.
The whole thing was crying out for applause. Instead, a painful silence. Because it was in the chapel, we were told not to applause. It was very embarrassing.
A month or two later, Gladys Knight brought her group to the area. Drums. Guitars. Dancing. And…clapping. In the chapel!
Um, what’s my point? Absolutely no idea.
September 25, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Jared E: Mark IV’s description of Wood Badge in #6 above, and what goes on there is not at all accurate. Wood Badge is advanced training for scout leaders. It is a very worthwhile experience and is strongly recommended by Pres. Dahlquist, the Church’s Young Men’s President. If you are really interested in what it is you can read about it here.
September 25, 2006 at 1:35 pm
At some point or another, all men act like doofuses. Even if they have Stake callings.
September 25, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Guy Murray,
Thank you, but I’m really not interesting in reading about it…I just wanted an excuse to use the word hell.
September 25, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Ronan, I assume your point was that Gladys Knight brings out the worst in usually righteous people?
September 25, 2006 at 1:56 pm
So do you think the Stake President meant to snub the musicians, or did he have a brain fart? Or maybe something in between… A brain fart because of a subconscious want to snub.
September 25, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I mean no disrespect at all to Wood Badge; I understand it’s a worthwhile program. This particular SP counselor had a sort of fetish over it, though, which manifested itself by this impropriety of gargantuan proportions. I suspect that to his perception what he had just witnessed was pretty much like a congregational rest hymn, requiring no thanks or comment whatsoever, whereas Wood Badge was really, really important stuff.
I wasn’t in the choir myself; I was just an observer in the audience. But I was completely dumbfounded by what unfolded that night.
This is, BTW, my attempt at a Wilfriedian post.
September 25, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Guy Murray has the keenest BSA BS detector in the bloggernacle.
September 25, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Re: The uneasy truce between music and Church leaders.
I spent several years seriously studying music and strongly considered a career in it. I eventually chose another path, but by far the most gifted musician I’ve ever met walked away from a very prestigous musical position working for the Church because he felt artistically stifled by Church leaders. He is still strongly active in the Church and enjoys an extremely successful career in music, but simply decided to no longer mix the two. (Actually, a few days after announcing his resignation, he was called to direct the ward choir–he reluctantly accepted).
My personal experience was different because I was studying at the same time as I had a bishop who was an accomplished classical clarinetist and whose wife was a prolific pianist. I guess local leadership varies, but my former mentor’s experience is nonetheless sobering.
September 25, 2006 at 5:07 pm
“Uneasy truce” does seem to be a good phrase to describe the Church leaders and trained musicians.
September 25, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Kevin Barney, I thought you communicated the dumbfounding non sequitur very well.
September 25, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Sounds about right. Boy Scouts and camping: yay! Handel (and Bach and Beethoven and Mozart): who cares?
September 26, 2006 at 8:28 am
The more I read these stories on the Bloggernacle, the clser my jaw gets to the floor.
I mean, duh! What makes people like this tick?
September 26, 2006 at 11:35 am
Two years ago our Stake in Houston got together to do a performance of “From Cumorah’s Hill,” a musical presentation written by Steven Kapp Perry, Brad Wilcox, and Greg Hansen. Not on the level of Handel, perhaps, but the first rehearsal was wildly successful. There were so many people there, we could not practice in the choir seats in the Stake Center. We all sat in the pews and filled the entire chapel. The practice was to be held on Sunday evenings for several months. The following week we were notified by the Stake Presidency that we could not rehearse on Sundays. Unfortunately, to get that many Mormons together at any other time during the week proved impossible. The Stake Music people carried on valiantly, but the performance ended up including less than 1/4 of those who originally were interested in participating. What a shame.
September 26, 2006 at 1:04 pm
C.L. Bruno, chalk it up to saints who bellyache non-stop about every hour the Church takes from them, putting leaders in a defensive position of cutting every optional activity they can, especially the ones they take no personal interest in.
September 26, 2006 at 1:33 pm
John Mansfield 23
Good comment!
September 26, 2006 at 2:42 pm
I realize I lack the requisite experience among those who normally post here to have my words carry much weight, nevertheless here goes.
I wander from Mormon blog to Mormon blog, reading a great deal more than I post. I’m not a lawyer, and hence many arguments against me are easily won. I look for blog’s that muse and think without getting into petty arguments or other asynine urinating contests. I seek what this blog’s mission statement proposes: a dialogue of Mormon thought.
I very often find, regrettably, that many blogs operate under the auspices of exploring their own faith without self aggrandizement, while they use their respective Rameumptoms to conjure up images of a Church that just can’t seem to get anything right.
This post does nothing to enhance anyone’s faith, nor does it explore Mormon thought. It’s a sarcastic reminder that those who are chosen to lead our stakes (they didn’t run for election, mind you) are capable of all kinds of fault. I didn’t think BCC was like this, but after reading this post I can’t help but begin to think otherwise.
I realize I’m a small fish in a big pond, and threatening to stop reading does absolutely nothing to motivate those who already have a respectable following and audience to change. I just don’t feel right supporting a blog that feels it necessary to chide those who strive to lead them.
September 26, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Chris R.,
For a moment when I read your comment it felt like I was reading the writing on the wall.
Mene. Mene. Tekel. Upharsin.
BCC has been weighed and found wanting.
But then I followed the link to your blog and see that you have been watching Kill Bill. Now who’s making light of our leaders (and their counsel to avoid violent films)?
Naughty boy.
September 26, 2006 at 2:56 pm
What’s worse than watching Kill Bill? Not loving every minute of it, that’s what.
September 26, 2006 at 3:00 pm
But do stick around. Ignore Barney. He has a beard and is clearly apostate.
And Kill Bill 2 (especially the burial sequence) is cinematic genius.
September 26, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Kevin I love this post! If I were you I would be most depressed at not earning some sort of honorary Wood Badge. Isn’t there any way for you to return to this said galaxy and get one?
September 26, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Amri, your complaint about Wood Badges reminds me of something I saw on Ebay.
September 26, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Chris R. said:
“I just don’t feel right supporting a blog that feels it necessary to chide those who strive to lead them.”
Oh come on, Chris. I wonder if you would make a distinction between a blog that is devoted solely to producing posts that chide the leadership, and a blog that does a lot of different things, including, on occasion, putting up a post that chides a member of the leadership. If you would make such a distinction, then I really don’t see how you can possibly reach conclusions about whether or not you should “support” this blog based upon an isolated instance of criticism on it. If you wouldn’t make such a distinction, then your position boils down to one of “all adulation (of the leadership), all the time,” and you can be sure that the BCC permabloggers have no interest in that.
Seriously, are a significant number of LDS members sooooo uncomfortable at acknowledging occasional fault in the leadership, even at the local level, that any instance of it becomes an occasion for bemoaning as innocuous a post as Kevin’s? I sure hope not. Cause if so, then there a signficant number of LDS members who I certainly don’t want to be in a position to teach the Gospel to my daughter.
Aaron B
September 26, 2006 at 3:41 pm
I am late to the party, I admit. Great post, Kevin. If nothing else, it reminded me to be nicer and to do a better job at noticing the nice things done to me.
September 27, 2006 at 12:04 am
25 — Chris, I hear you, but I’m not sure you’re hearing me, nor Kevin. The purpose here is not to chide those who try to lead us — that purpose would be served by actually chiding those who try to lead us, rather than talking about it on a blog. Talking about it here is to have a place to disclose and discuss things that happen that don’t make sense. Sometimes, that’s because we lack understanding that others out here have, and they share it with us. Other times, the thing really doesn’t make sense, and we get the assurance that we’re not really insane.
Which can be a real concern in Mormon culture.
Personally, I find the fallibility of our leaders to be a wonderful thing. You know the old saying about how the Church must be true or the missionaries would have destroyed it long ago? Similarly, the fact that the Church has done as well as it has with the fallible leaders and members it has had to do them with is a testiment to me that there is something more here than simply the combined ability of the individual members. It’s very reassuring, because I am very fallible, and it gives me hope to realize that some pretty cool people mess up sometimes too.
September 27, 2006 at 4:48 pm
I have a friend whose brother is now the Church’s main music person (non-Tab Choir). He got an earful from my friend (his sister) about her stake’s refusal to allow musical arrangements other than hymns from the 21-year old hymnbook. Meanwhile, the Tab Choir is doing all kinds of non-1985 hymnbook numbers in general conference with President Hinckley’s blessing. So this guy goes to President Hinckley and within a month a letter comes out reminding Church leaders of what is actually appropriate when it comes to music. And it’s not just hymns. But the problem still persists. Just try being a stake president and telling your Area President about the letter when he tells you it’s going to be hymns only at stake conference or other meetings. It still seems to be a problem in the Church. I think an “uneasy truce” is a good description. It is one of those few areas in which personal preference seems to trump a letter from the First Presidency.
Regarding Wood Badge: Too bad the congrats had to occur after an evening of beauty and serenity. For some reason, Wood Badge has become sort of the men’s equivalent of Duty to God. And scout leaders feel it especially important to recognize everyone who does it, especially if it is a stake officer on the receiving end, not just the giving end.
September 28, 2006 at 6:37 pm
They made those guys wait through two hours of opening music to get their badges???
September 28, 2006 at 7:22 pm
re: 18 Odd, that. I wonder why, D. ??? : )
September 29, 2006 at 12:33 am
I quote from the Woodbadge web site:
Now really, does that sound like a celestial program to anyone? It sounds like corporate quasi-spiritual business-babble to me. Not that the program is not valuable, but the doctrine of the priesthood really ought to be teachable in a far more compelling manner than a generic business leadership training program.
September 29, 2006 at 12:40 am
I realize that Scouting’s radical ecumenicism mandates about half of the insipid nature of a program like that. However, I would much, much rather attend a Confucianism based leadership training program than an organizational psychology based one though. Much closer correlation with the gospel of salvation.
September 29, 2006 at 8:02 am
My Wife is a professional musician and she has never been snubbed but only praised for her talents and sharing them as she has led choirs and done solos. No one has ever told her to only use the hymn book. Her Stake Presidents and her Bishops have always encouraged her and praised her.
She’s sang everything from St. Francis of Assisi’s famous prayer to once (to her disgust) doing a mormon pop piece.
The only person who has ever embarrassed her on a musical level is her untalented non-musical husband.
Thanks for this reminder to “think to thank” to those of us her are musically innept.
September 29, 2006 at 9:21 am
Regarding the unwritten order of things dictating that only hymns be performed in church meetings. I agree it is needlessly limiting and inconsistent with the music performed in general conference.
It exists because it is actively preached and enforced by a very influential senior apostle. Two years ago he visited our stake and before his visit the stake president received specific instructions about music. Hymns only, including prelude and postlude music.
September 29, 2006 at 9:55 am
The problem about such a regime is that it is a system of damnation. Each of us is given the name of Christ though as mortals we hardly deserve it. Shouldn’t we have a plan of salvation for hymns as well?
September 29, 2006 at 10:30 am
Mark #37 & 38:
I’m certain it was not Kevin’s intent for this thread to be hijacked into a bash scouting and Wood Badge thread. I’m actually sympathetic to the intent of his original post, and agree with the thrust of his point about the sometimes only mediocre esteem in which some Church members hold the fine arts, and our lack of appreciation for them.
But, I think you’ve gone off the reservation here with your Wood Badge bashing–and as a current Scouter and Wood Badger I am compelled to respond. So, Kevin, if you feel the need, go ahead and delete my comment–but please keep in mind why I made them.
Not to belabor the point let me just say, Mark, that your position on Scouting and Wood Badge is completely inconsistent with that of the Brethren and the General Young Men’s Presidency. I realize it’s probably not as exciting or “celestial†a topic as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But, it is one that the “Brethren” have spoken pretty clearly about, and one which they whole heartily support.
End of forced thread jack.
September 29, 2006 at 11:26 am
I have also received instruction from that senior apostle. This is what I heard: 1) Our music, first and foremost, is to be a worship experience that reflects the tone of the hymns; 2) hymns do that very well; and 3) we should avoid musical performance in Sacrament Meeting (and stake conference) where the focus is on the performance and not on the spirit of worship. Now, we all get to interpret that counsel in our own way, and so do our local leaders. We have a professional musician in our stake who likes to sit at the piano and play and sing at the same time. Having heard this twice, I enjoyed it on one level, but it felt awkward for sacrament meeting – like the focus was on the performance. He is now asked to sing while someone else plays for him. I’m sure some of you find that just ridiculous. But I’m sure that others of you sense what that senior apostle is trying to convey to us.
September 29, 2006 at 11:46 am
Question to Kevin:
Did you say anything to this member of the presidency (in private)? It’s possible that he did not know he was being rude and ungrateful. If you spoke with him regarding this incident I would have been more interested with his response to you. If you did not then shame on you (that is, unless you found his behavior appropriate). Relating this event, as is, is little more than petty sniping. I would have thought you, of all people, would have taken the time to offer a little advice to someone else who so obviously needed it.
September 29, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Re: #44, no, I didn’t say anything to him after the fact, and it’s a little late now. He has been dead lo these many years now.
In retrospect maybe I should have said something to someone. But my jaw was still on the ground, and I’m not sure what I would have said or to whom. Whatever I said, it would have been too late to remedy the lack of public recognition to the performers at the performance itself, as at best it would have been after the prayer with the crowd rapidly dispersing.
September 29, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Guy M.,
Please note that I did not say that Wood Badge was a bad thing by any means. My point is that it, by necessity is a heavily watered down version of what ought to be known as the doctrine of the Priesthood, so eloquently summarized in the latter part of D&C 121.
That is the price one pays for radical ecumenicism – turning something that ought to be a religion, into nothing more than the propagation of shared values. I am a little cynical about the idea that one can make an arbitrary choice of values (a la much of the corporate world) and plug them into a little org. psych. engine and presto, lots of happy people working together in any cause you choose. Call it guilt by association.
That is not so say with a preference for revealed principles from the heavens, that this program cannot be used effectively in scouting leadership training, even train better priesthood leaders in many cases.
September 29, 2006 at 2:00 pm
If we have to limit the music to what is in the hymn book (to qualify for the blessing of the presiding authority–and I’ll grant him that right: if he doesn’t want certain music sung/played, he has the right and the responsibility to direct what should be done), can we go one step further and refuse to sing/play any of the stuff in the hymnbook that are not hymns?
September 29, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Besides, everytime an apostle has come to San Antonio, we end up singing “Oh Divine Redeemer”. Which is not in the hymn book and sounds like shreeking eels.