Singles Wards. El Fin (del Mundo).

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more
No, I aint gonna work on Maggie's farm no more
Well, I wake up in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin' me insane
It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more
No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more
Well, when she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law
Everybody says
She's the brains behind pa
She's sixty-eight, but she says she's twenty-four
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.

~Maggie's Farm; Robert Zimmerman.

This is the final post on singles wards. I hope to never have to talk about singles wards again. Be warned that this post could be rather dense. Although maybe that is what you think of every post.

After a four year tenure in the same singles ward, I recently changed wards. (This came with changing cities). The funny thing is that probably no one even knew I had left. There were no announcements. No crying. No memorials on the ward ("Unofficial") Facebook page. The third hour meeting ended and I walked out the door on my last day. End of story. Three bishops, five counselors, and seven high councilors later my time in the ward had come to an end. Twice I endured the Chalice of Destiny, but no glass was to be raised this day. It was almost perversely amusing.

In saying all this, please to not think I wanted some sort of fanfare on my last day. Far from it. I belonged to the apartment that sat in sacrament meeting with one-chair gaps between us so that no one could sit by us. It gives me the willies to have some glad-handing man in a suit sitting next to me out of a sense of duty. Truth be told, I almost take great pride in being under the radar, in being totally unknown. I do not want you and your social church all up in my face. I find satisfaction in having someone come up to me and ask me if I'm new. (I still got that, even near "the end.") But as I was sitting at home after my last time in that ward, I realized that really I had made no impact in that ward. I went to church for church's sake. I did my calling in the same manner. And it meant nothing in a sense. This is a horribly pessimistic view, but it was odd to realize how little of an impact you can have in four years.

In the first few years in that ward, I made myself more visible from a social standpoint. However I slowly began to see that I just could not dance the dance. My people consistently did not fit in as it pertained to the social church.  This was a realization on a larger scale than just this one ward. The ward itself had little to do with the conclusion that I did not know the social dance steps. It really could have been almost any singles ward. It was just one slice of the wholistic pie.

Let me also add at this point that there were some leaders and ward members that I felt knew me. Not just my name and major, but me. These people made an actual difference. Many of these people (including some readers of the blog) came to my mind. These were people who actually cared. I am thankful for them. However, I could never quite shake the overall feeling of being just a name on a page. I was just one more person to delete from the ward Facebook page at the end of the semester (Too bad I'm not a cute girl, then I would have been given emeritus status. Yes. I am going to call you on that Bubba Fwench.....anyway.)

All of this made me ask why I go to a singles ward. I honestly hate socializing. I hate socialites being all up on me, faking that they care. Nine plus years of wearing the YSA (Young Single Adult) badge has taught me that. Sure, I sometimes went to ward activities and talked to people. Oftentimes ward members would actually reply. But I usually just felt we were playing a recreational game of Spades. We did not care about the outcome, it was just something to do while we waited for the true excitement to start. Once people realized I was not playing with a full deck socially, they just sort of dealt me out. Their spin cycle sent me to the outside. 

Now again, I am not necessarily looking to fit in. And maybe that is the whole point. I do not even want to be part of the singles ward game. I do not know the rules and I keep getting passed the jinx. 

All of this is much more of a personal or internal problem than an issue with any specific singles ward. What I say next can be applied broadly and is certainly not specific to one ward or even singles wards alone. There are lots of "family wards" that have good ol' boys clubs and cliques, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth.

I have long wanted to know how I can get more out of the block of meetings at church and also how I can give more. Especially how I can give more in a way that is meaningful to the greater cause, ways of making a true difference. Yet I searched for all my years in those singles wards and never really found my place. Naturally much of this is "my own fault." I never was good at "reaching out" (which has become an official social church platitude). I never even really desired to reach out. The onus was on me to make an impact and I did not. Sure, I get that. But there also is an aspect of me that wants to point out that there needs to be avenues for people to contribute in ways beyond "fellowshipping" and glad handing. We need ways that people can make a positive impact even if they do not come to every flippin' Slip 'n Slide activity. (I am not trying to bash on Slip 'n Slide activities. I highly enjoyed the ones I went to. But I did not see them as "fellowshipping" activities. Sorry. Our doctrine is not one of slippery plastic on a hill).

From my view, the propagators of the Slip 'n Slide gospel were sometimes given an almost elevated status in the ward. These were the "fun" people, the people that the leaders invited over for special activities at their house. These were the people who got an honorary announcement in church when they moved out of the ward. We need more than "fun" in church. Again, fun is not bad. It just is insufficient as a doctrine of salvation.

Now sure, I like enjoyment as much as the next guy, but there comes a point where we need to recognize that we need more than gregarious greeters at the doors and in the pews. This is perhaps a view of iconoclasm, but we really do not need people who only come to church to be a socialite. Why is it that the callings of greatest ascendancy are ofttimes those connected with the social church, while the Sunday School president and the Temple & Family History coordinators are shown a seat on the back row of leadership meetings? (Not to say anything about how much they are even allowed to speak in these meetings). Perhaps we got it all wrong. More than once I was told that my calling "mattered," yet I was shown that it didn't. Time and money talk. Enough said.  

Much of what I disliked about singles wards was the saccharin facade. We were (and are) all a bunch of fakers. That's pretty much what I have been taught about how to act in those wards. You have to go in and fake like you are someone's friend, fake that you care about their life, fake like you don't notice that they are faking. Most of the time I really did try. I tried to care. But there still was an element of "fake" involved. Again, this is the pessimism speaking, but most of what I did in those singles wards was fake. 

Some people successfully make an impact in the venue of singles wards. That is positive and good. If you are such a person, I really am glad you were able to find that connection. Honestly, I am. Some of my all time favorite people were also movers and shakers in their singles wards. Yet for whatever reason, I just could never really find any traction in the singles wards I was in. There was a whole lot of wheel spinning and mud flinging, but it never really moved me down the road. At the end of my time in these YSA wards I hopped out of the jeep and realized I had gone 14 feet. Just under five yards was all I had to show for nine years of petrol consumption.

Some local menfolk (both single).

Okay, maybe we are getting lost in the metaphor.......

Let me close these posts on singles wards by saying that I am of course aware that most people are seeking to do their best. We see different ways to climb the hill. I guess I can allow that. Although, let's face it, if I truly accepted this whole stuff about "everyone's trying" then I would not be writing this blog. The very essence of this blog is the concept that I and my people are better at life than the general laity. That is the whole point of the blog: superiority at life. But I will try to keep in mind that we all have our strengths and weaknesses. However, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more.