After more than five years in Utah, I’ll soon be moving to Pasadena, CA to go to Fuller Seminary. It’s been so hard to wrap my mind around that change that until recently (yesterday), I avoided even thinking about it. I am allergic to planning (and also to bees, but I’d rather get stung than plan something), so finding housing and figuring out how I’m getting there (neither of which has yet felt necessary enough to undertake) have not been priorities. Also, I just didn’t want to move. I hate moving, and Utah feels like home now.
My sister moved to Pasadena a week ago and already has a good job–which is very exciting–but I feel that I need to turn the attention of all of our mutual friends back to me regarding our journeys to Pasadena. So this post is serving the dual function of reminding anyone who needs reminding that this move of ours to Pasadena is really more about me–though of course Anna’s a pretty good sidekick, so it’s alright for her to have a few days in the sun, but a week is feeling like overkill to all of us, I’m sure–and giving me a chance to begin processing the upcoming move.
I think the only thing more startling than moving into Utah may be moving out of Utah. I forget sometimes that I haven’t always lived here. It seems normal to me that women wear shorts to their knees and that people believe in three heavens and don’t drink coffee. I’m surprised when I hear anyone swear, and I sometimes catch myself gazing for an inappropriate amount of time at people with tattoos. I’ve nearly forgotten my mother tongue, Christianese; I now speak Mormon almost fluently. I think in terms of having testimonies of things, and I feel befuddled at evangelicals’ attachment to Enlightenment rationalism.
Theologically, Utah gave me space to breathe. Evangelicals tend to police orthodoxy with McCarthy-esque diligence, and the sheer lack of expectations Mormons had for my theology was freeing. Leaving that behind for a seminary environment, of all places, will be difficult.
But I’m also excited about the change. I enjoy learning most of all, and learning new things about Mormonism isn’t happening nearly as much as it used to these days, and I’m ready for a new something to immerse myself in. It’s not that I find Mormonism uninteresting; it will forever hold fascination for me as well as a soft spot in my heart. And it’s not that I think I’ve exhausted Mormonism. It’s just that as much as I’ll miss being surrounded by Mormon culture–and I will miss it–I’m ready for something else. I have the religious equivalent of wanderlust.
It seems like an appropriate thing to do would be to write about things I’m looking forward to about being at Fuller, but I’m a lot better at reflecting on the past than I am at thinking ahead, so I haven’t spent much time yet anticipating life in California. There are a few things, though…
I’m looking forward to being among people whose interests are similar to mine. I majored in philosophy at BYU, and I’m glad I did; I really enjoyed the classes, and I found community and camaraderie with philosophy students that I don’t feel I would have found in other majors. But philosophy isn’t where my heart lies. The intersection of religion and culture is a lot closer to it, and that’s what I’ll be studying at Fuller. I’m also looking forward to living somewhere as starkly different from both Minnesota and Utah as Southern California is. Its foreignness is a draw for me right now. And I just feel like Fuller is where I’m supposed to be, so going there feels a little like taking a drink when I’m thirsty, even though I have no idea how it will taste. Three more weeks!
Wow, I can’t believe it has been five years!
Sarah, Fuller will be awesome for you! They’re not quite as orthodox as you may fear–at least from my understanding.
also…be assured that Utah will miss you too.
Well, Sarah, if it’s any reassurance, I think TEDS is further right on the “orthodoxy” spectrum than Fuller, yet I’ve found an incredible level of acceptance and understanding here—Mormon husband, unorthodox views and all.
I miss Utah a lot. Returning in March of this year for the first time in five years was such a breath of fresh air. If I was not terrified of the thought of trying to raise an interfaith family in such a heavily Mormon environment, I’d want to live there permanently.
Then again, I can’t deny that exploring my own religious tradition more fully and finding a denominational home with the ECC has been an amazing experience for me, and I often wonder how different my life would have been had I started at an evangelical seminary for undergrad instead of going to BYU. Oh well. “Roads not taken” and all.
Love the idea of “religious wanderlust.” I hope your experience at Fuller is a good one. Do look up Dr. Mouw when you get there.
Sorry again that I missed you this month. Sunstone was crazy-busy for me and my family.
“Theologically, Utah gave me space to breathe. Evangelicals tend to police orthodoxy with McCarthy-esque diligence, and the sheer lack of expectations Mormons had for my theology was freeing.”
I was interested in this quote.
Mostly because the idea that Mormons are theologically open-minded is something I’ve been thinking a lot myself.
But my conclusions formed in an apologetic context – debating with Evangelicals and trying to explain how Mormons are different. So there was always a part of me that was second-guessing and wondering if I was just seeing in Mormon culture what I wanted to see.
So I guess I’m interested whether theological openness was really your experience of Utah. I’d like to know whether I was on to something, or simply off in left field.
Seth,
I do think Mormons are less concerned with doctrinal orthodoxy than evangelicals are. Part of the freedom I experienced in Utah was just my being not-Mormon (so whatever I believed wasn’t really challenged on grounds of orthodoxy, because we had different orthodoxies), but part of it was also definitely that orthodoxy just isn’t as big a deal for Mormons. I have LDS friends who are everywhere on the spectrum of belief within Mormonism, and they’re all included without question in the faith, I think because their beliefs don’t matter to people as much as their acceptance of the Church as true as evidenced by their baptisms and whatnot.
It seems like within Mormonism, there are meta-beliefs (the Church is true, there’s a prophet on the earth today) that are required for orthodoxy, but beyond those things, a lot can be questioned without one’s status as a Latter-day Saint being suspect. And I even have friends who affirm those things but define them somewhat unusually (the Church is true, but so are many other/all churches, and there’s a prophet today, but that doesn’t necessarily make him right very often), and though they get more negative feedback than others about those things, they are still accepted (and go to the temple, even). The confines of orthodoxy are much more rigid within evangelicalism.
I think you’ll be quite surprised at the culture at Fuller. There are people who believe all kinds of things there.