In good graces

INTRODUCTION

I have trouble separating myself from my work—to the extent that I am in a codependent relationship with artmaking and performance. My introduction to performance and performativity started with my religious upbringing and Midwestern sensibilities. I have come to what feels like a logical conclusion: finally collapsing my practice and my life into a thesis- turned-memoir. The writing is dissected into performances—whether intentional, subconscious, ceremonious, or blasphemous.

THE DEPOSITION

When I walk into art galleries, sometimes I’m filled with awe and wonder—well, for at least 20 minutes until I have to sit down. Then, as always, the white void that is the gallery space demands that I stay upright because of the space’s sheer lack of chairs. Maybe in the odd museum, during a lengthy video piece, a black rectangle will be dragged in front of the screen for weary onlookers to take short respite. Otherwise, not only am I supposed to contemplate the state of modern-day human slavery that made my iPhone 7 plus (which my mom gave me because my sister needs someone else to be on her family plan for it to even make sense), but I also have to do it standing up for an hour.

Which is why, when I enter a warehouse full of beautifully-designed pieces of MDF furniture, I am frankly relieved. I know where I stand in Ikea, and more importantly—I know where I sit. Anywhere. Everywhere. I get my grubby, lingonberry-stained hands all up in the VEDBO’s and the EKENÄSET’s. Ikeas are huge, intoxicating, disorienting, and unimaginably wasteful, but I really do like chairs.

ABSOLUTION

I am deeply obsessed with Deposition paintings. Jesus of Nazareth is being carried by his disciples and surrounded by the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and others. He is limp with his torso being held up from behind and his legs being held up by his knees. Christ is in a kind of fireman’s carry to his tomb.

Sometimes, I try to place my body in the same position as Christs. I take two dining chairs and lay them on the ground with their seats facing downward and the legs facing upward. I point the chairs facing each other to create a kind of valley to drape my body on top of. I flop my arms this way and that. That’s what it was probably like for those carrying the body. Heavy, uncomfortable, I’m sure someone was thinking “What the hell do we do now.”

RESSURECTION

As a kid, I started falling and not getting up. It was like half of me would just shut off all of the sudden. No matter how hard I tried to will my legs to life, they declined. I started to question how any of me was held together. I started to imagine that my frame consisted of Triscuit crackers and rubber bands in a precarious, pulley-based mechanism. In the pure chaos that was recess soccer, the mob of kids trying to kick the ball the opposite direction would usually butcher shins without much remorse. I often found myself on the ground after brutal free-for-alls. But instead of popping back up like the others, I would feel that familiar absence and end up alone in the field as the bell would ring for us to come back to class. Eventually, just as a precautionary measure, I brought crutches to school. It was laughable for students to see me—quite able-bodied during recess, destroying some random classmate’s shins—and then seconds later, motionless in the field of dead grass. In retrospect, I can see how I had lost all credibility amongst my fellow students. After my lower half failed, I wasn’t ever safe until someone picked me up and brought me to my chair.

At home, I received a blessing from men in my congregation that was meant to heal me of my affliction. In the Mormon faith, each man who is part of a blessing places their right hand on top of the recipient’s head and their left hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them. From the top down, it looks like a pinwheel of sweaty, shaky palms. If a blessing goes long, you might start feeling the weight of all the hands sinking into the top of your head, and your neck beginning to slouch. In my case, even though the blessing prayer would usually include something about being buoyed up, it was always the chair that ended up keeping me upright.

The chairs at school were badly abused. As is human nature, we all would lean back in our chairs, almost like playing a game of chicken until someone assuredly lost control and split their head on the ground. The bottom of every chair was covered in used bubblegum contraband. Many of the chairs had been claimed by one person or another, some with names scraped on the back via a metal ruler or chewed pen cap. Though some seats had wobbly legs, or a slight squeak to them, they were all sufficient.

After months of looking for answers, my parents and I discovered that one of my legs was actually separating from my hip, and I ended up receiving surgery that very night so I wouldn’t lose permanent circulation in my legs. The doctor stated very matter-of-factly to my father—as I sat on the foam padded examination chair with that disposable protective paper—that I would need to be rushed to an operating room. After the surgery, I showed up to school in the most luxurious of wheelchairs. For me, it was quite the improvement compared to walking. I gained an amount of self-satisfaction. Like Christ himself appearing to Doubting Thomas, I showed my wounds to the students around me and they did believe.

POWER

At the age of sixteen, I knew that I was going to be the next prophet. Us deacons, teachers and priests knew that the bishop taught, that the prophet, Thomas S. Monson, taught, that we young men had the priesthood. And we deacons knew that the bishop taught, that the prophet taught, that the scriptures taught, that the priesthood is the power and authority to act in God’s name on earth. Every Sunday, we walked up and down the church pews, distributing that sweet sacrament to ward members of the Eagle Creek area of Indianapolis, Indiana. I would recite the sacrament prayer with exactness, pausing to make sure to emphasize the body of Christ. It’s tradition that if one forgets any word in the prayer, the prayer must be repeated until completed correctly in its entirety. Rarely did I mess up, because I knew with the power of God, I could finally let the rest of the meeting proceed.

Ultimate power.

I found that the power I had worked mysteriously and slowly. Like in the fifth grade, when the new kid, Bryan, pantsed me in front of the entire gym class. Though initially it seemed that he would go unscathed from the sting of judgement, Bryan was later chastised by our teacher and started being overly kind to me. He acted with the kind of fear that only God (or maybe Miss Dyson) could produce.

REVELATIONS

Always direct, I told my mother that I didn’t believe in God via text message.

“I think I’m an atheist” I typed.

When my family and I get together in one place we are loud, fighting to make sure our words are heard over the others. But at times, we can also be surprisingly discrete. My mother, in response to my disclosure of nonbelief, simply liked my text with a heart icon. I think she finally understood—there was no turning back for me.

I had spent maybe a year screaming through my cellphone at my parents. I felt trapped and wanted someone to fight. I survived Sundays by hiding in the art studios on BYU campus, away from any students in my congregation. A student’s standing at BYU is tied to their standing as a church member. If my roommates knew I was planning on leaving the church, I could be summoned to the bishop’s office, have my ecclesiastical endorsement pulled, my transcript withheld, and in some cases, even be kicked out of student housing.

For a while, my parents held on to different hopes for me. I could hear them grasp at any word that might suggest my heart still belonged to God. Every “no” I delivered was laced with more anger than the last:

Maybe you don’t like church, but what about the scriptures? No.

Do you still have a connection with God? Christ? No.

But do you still pray? No.

Will you remove your records from the Church?

It’s a peculiar question. The Mormons are thought to be a peculiar people. The church is a church of order. Every ritual is accompanied by a form to fill out—even the act of apostasy. From the moment you are brought in to the church and blessed in front of the congregation as a baby, you are marked as a part of the fold. You are given a record number. You use it to pay tithing, look for church buildings in your area, apply for church-run schools, and engage in temple preparation. It used to be the case that when a Mormon asked their bishop to remove their membership records, it would trigger a multistage bureaucratic process to give the doubting church member plenty of time to back out. In Mormon theology, removing your records from the church is akin to excommunication. It is spiritual death.

I sent my bishop a text message.

SINS OF OMISSION

I lived for two years as a Mormon missionary in the Bay Area. Some spent their days proselyting to Silicon boys and girls on Stanford campus. My appointed co-missionary and I (also called “mission companions” or simply “elders”), spent our days biking the streets of California’s forgotten cities. In a world of cars, we were handing out fliers and booklets on barren sidewalks to anyone unfortunate enough to meet our gaze.

During my first year, there were a number of car accidents in the mission. One was particularly harrowing. There were four missionaries heading somewhere (where, I am not sure). Somehow, they ended up in a gnarly accident. I heard rumors of a car turned over. The mission president—a man tasked with corralling a hundred or so young Mormon adults—made a statement about the wreck. He declared that most everyone in the accident was fine. The only person who was badly injured was the elder who wasn’t wearing his sacred garments. Sin of omission. He was not fully protected by the power of God.

Silly elder, I thought.

I hate driving cars. I am incredibly short and wear exceptionally large glasses. When I was taking driver’s ed classes, I had two teachers—one who spent the whole time hovering over the emergency passenger break, and another who asked me to stop by the gas station and spent the rest of lesson eating bear claws. An ominous start.

In the mission handbook, it dictates that mission companions should always be near one another. Colloquially, we were told that mission companions should always be within sight and hearing distance. Every rule a commandment, I stuck close to my missionary peers. Once, my companions—in a not-so-rare moment of teasing—biked across a cross walk to our apartment, leaving me in the distance.

Determined to stay in good graces, I biked into traffic the moment the turning light came on. I thought I knew the next few moments, but after consulting my companions, who explained I must have flown pretty far, my memory is a bit shaky. Though I do remember everyone around me having no patience at all. Every car on the road honking and screaming for me to move. The man who hit me—who couldn’t have been much older than I was stood with his name and phone number written in sheer panic on a piece of scrap paper. My companions were far less concerned. We returned to the apartment, ate some food, got back on our bikes. I wondered what sin I had committed.

THE MARK

In elementary school, I had a swearing problem, a cursing obsession. I had no credibility with my school friends, so I would try to act hard, emulating our collective heroes—TI, G-Unit. But the other kids knew me too well. Or rather, I knew very little about myself.

It was common to hear my speech truncate, my words abbreviate, my demeanor shift. “Aight,” I might gesture with the subtle head nod. Or, “DAAAUUMMNN!” as someone received a soccer ball to their crotch at recess. It was hollow, but it was what I had to offer. You might have heard some of the other kids blurt out, “nah, Julian’s too white”

At home, my family would have “family home evening”. Essentially a church initiative to help kids remember what they’d learned at church. We’d read from things like For the Strength of Youth, a pamphlet created to help young people maintain the spirit in their lives.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, For the Strength of Youth Pamphlet, pg. 21.

“Remember that these standards for your use of language apply to all forms of communication, including texting on a cell phone or communicating on the Internet.

If you have developed the habit of using language that is not in keeping with these standards—such as swearing, mocking, gossiping, or speaking in anger to others—you can change. Pray for help. Ask your family and friends to support you in your desire to use good language.”

We never talked about how people looked at us when went to church out of town. They’d think we were lost. They’d think we weren’t members.

On my mission, I was biking in Palo Alto and saw in the distance a biker, coming from the opposite direction. As we passed each other I heard him shout in utter disbelief, “There are Black Mormons!?”

In the Book of Mormon, you can read a tale of a righteous fair-skinned people that traveled from Jerusalem to the Americas, only for some of them to abandon God. Those people were called the Lamanites, and God cursed them and turned their skin dark.

In a religion class in college, someone asked why God would think that having dark skin was a curse. The professor rattled off some drivel about “the curse” and “the mark.” The curse being separation from God and the mark being the black skin. He described them as two separate things. My mouth started to sour. I think my body wanted to dissolve at that moment. Naturally, all eyes shifted toward me, but no one asked me to chime in. I’m just the only Black person in the room.

GENERAL HANDBOOK SECTION 19.4.2

Brent, another boy from the Little Red Door sleep-away camp, sat playing Smoke on The Water on the scratchy acoustic guitar he’d brought for the week. While he was strangling sounds from his instrument, I couldn’t help but focus on how he wore tank tops with sleeves cut off so deep that one of his nipples would always say “hello” to me from the periphery. And whenever Brent caught some coed in his twangy siren song, he would flash this smug grin of satisfaction. I left camp that year with a steely resolve: I would destroy Brent.

I spent the following year building calluses on the fingers of my left hand, playing a cheap electro-acoustic guitar in front of my family’s television during commercial breaks. I took classes from a music teacher at the strip mall next to the Super Target. He asked what kind of music I’d like to learn. I chose death metal. It was only appropriate, given my plans to melt Brent’s smile right off of his face.

In the church, there are rules for everything. And there is a handbook for those rules. Rules for music at church are held, naturally, within the music section (section 19) of the oddly specific General Handbook. Guidelines for choosing appropriate music for church worship services (subsection 19.4.2), are as follows:

“Secular music should not replace sacred music in Sunday meetings. Some religiously oriented music presented in a popular style is not appropriate for sacrament meetings. Also, much sacred music that is suitable for concerts and recitals is not appropriate for a Latter-day Saint worship service.

Music in Church meetings should not draw attention to itself or be for demonstration. This music is for worship, not performance.

Organs and pianos, or their electronic equivalents, are the standard instruments used in Church meetings. If other instruments are used, their use should be in keeping with the spirit of the meeting. Instruments with a prominent or less worshipful sound, such as most brass and percussion, are not appropriate for sacrament meeting.”

Amongst my friends, it was debated whether guitars qualified as instruments worthy of playing during sacrament meeting. Some suggested that the instrument was too colloquial and that its mainstream appeal was a distraction. Others suggested that in order for the guitar to be acceptable for Sunday service, one could not strum the guitar, but had to play in a classical finger-picking style. We all knew that the electric guitar was not even up for debate and had no chance of making an appearance at a Sunday service—and maybe even in the chapel at all.

Years ago, when my uncle passed of an ailment I can’t quite remember, my family went to the funeral. We drove down to Memphis in our hot green minivan, into swampy Memphis air. Most of that day is blurry to me—except for getting lost trying to find the after-funeral banquet.

But I do remember the funeral being loud. Our sacrament meetings back home were mind-numbing. We were taught that the Spirit of the Lord was still and quiet. I was disoriented by the sounds of the church in Memphis: clapping, yelling. I was confused. I wasn’t sure if people knew my uncle was actually dead. I also remember a guitar. And an electric one at that. The electric guitar was worship-approved.

Summer came around again and I was out for blood. I was surrounded by eager ears on the steps of the boy’s cabin. I had Brent’s guitar in hand. I thought of no better way to deliver the finishing blow than with his own torture device. I learned to drop the E – string down to a D while playing, I learned to finger pick the tiny high notes at the bottom of the neck, I learned how to gently hit the strings natural harmonics to create the most soothing ring. It was the murder I had been planning all year, executed with perfection. I raised my eyes to the small crowed of teens sitting on the wooden railing beside me. “Cool” they shrugged. Unfazed, Brent asked if anyone wanted to go on a trip in his jeep. It’s foggy but I imagine he arose, tank top on, flashing me again with his nipple, winking goodbye.

MINISTERING

When I was in my late teens, I spent much of my time doing what the Mormon church called “Home Teaching,” and now has rebranded as “Ministering.” Each man over the age of 16 was paired up to meet designated families within the congregation. We were to fellowship, offer assistance, teach a spiritual lesson, and give priesthood blessings. For many years I was the only young LDS boy in the entire Eagle Creek, Indianapolis area. So, I spent a lot of time visiting families, usually with an older home teaching companion.

Often, the ward would ask me to home-teach elderly men dying from cancer. As I had survived cancer twice, it seemed only natural to them to give me this assignment, and I didn’t dare reject my calling. One gentleman was living in a nursing home when I visited him. The hallways were filled with residents who seemed very distant from themselves. Others were all too aware of their current states, and others were content. The man I visited was gravely concerned. He was persistent because his Parkinson’s demanded it. Each word needed to be said.

As far as I could see, he had few possessions, the most important one being the Book of Mormon that always lay close to his adjustable bed. We would recite a few verses as a part of our visits. Once, on a routine visit as we read together, the old man grabbed me with surprising strength in his tremoring arm and pulled me towards him. He said I was a good boy. And by that he meant I was a righteous boy. I recoiled. I think my body was telling me something. I would never show it, but I was always eager to leave these meetings.

MAKING ASSIGNMENTS

“Elders quorum and Relief Society presidencies prayerfully consider assignments for ministering brothers and sisters. They take into account the strengths and needs of the members. They also consider the needs of children in the family. They normally assign two brothers or two sisters as companionships. They seek the bishop’s approval for ministering companionships and assignments.

When making these decisions, leaders consider the following:

Dedicated ministering brothers and sisters should be assigned to members who have the greatest need. These may include new members, single parents, widows, widowers, and less-active members.

Youth may serve as companions to adults according to the guidelines in 21.2.2.”

CONFESSION

I ministered to another very ill man. He was unavoidably present. His wife would swivel the beast of a man in his wheelchair into his home office. He was attached to a machine that sent electrical pulses to his extremities to alleviate pain. He had a late-stage pancreatic cancer, and he was on a mission. He had put together a website where those who have had cancer could share their testimony—their proclamations of faith. The man turned his desktop monitor to show me the site full of proud believers. I remember feeling embarrassed that I spent my time fighting cancer, complaining about how the pediatric hospital I was in didn’t make real peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They just placed Smuckers Uncrustables on a plate and sent it up in a cloche.

As I looked at his website, the man moved quickly and presented me with a Flip video camera. As if to tempt me, he said that I could have the camera with one stipulation—that I share my testimony and post it on his site. And almost unknowingly I had committed to the terms of the agreement. 20

VISIONS

The camera was quite peculiar. It had one purpose—and its design reflected that purpose. There were no detachable lenses, no variable settings, no auto-focus, no in-camera stabilization. It was a rectangle with a fixed lens, arrows for navigation, a USB port, and one giant red record button. As if designed by the apostles, all that was ostentatious, unnecessary—a distraction from the higher purpose—was eliminated. I knew the camera was more devoted than I was. Whenever I finished recording and got ready to plug the device into a computer, the USB port would shoot out of the camera like a switchblade as if to remind me of its sheer power. This camera would surely die for its convictions, for its memory, for its truth. The camera traveled in its hard-plastic casing with neither purse nor script to document the Good Word. At times, I couldn’t dare look at the camera, because it’s all-seeing eye was too much to bear.

Eventually, I had built the courage to lie into the camera.

It was given to me as a gift with one stipulation: that I make a video of my testimony and allow the video to be shared on a website for church members who were fighting cancer. And one man’s dying wish was the only thing that could get me to do so. On the day I finished my recording, I was told that the man who gave me the camera had died that very day. I was left with the camera, knowing I now had stolen property. I was a liar, a thief, and worst of all, an apostate.

I tried to find a new use for the camera. I made videos of myself dancing around abandoned buildings. I took it on school trips and vacations. But for the life of me, I couldn’t shake off how it was cursed. It was once God’s camera, and now it was just mine. In the book of Matthew, Christ states that hypocrites love to pray out in the open, on street corners,

“where they may be seen of men” (KJV Bible, Matt. 6:5). I have not found that to be true.

OBEDIENCE

In the faith, sin is not just something you do, but also things you fail to do, sins of omission. Like when those who failed to smear lamb’s blood on their doors (as Moses prescribed) were cursed to have their first-born sons die by the hands of the Lord. If I knew anything—if I believed anything—it was that if there was a God, he did not look kindly on failure.

THE CURSE

I started volunteering at a local community center in Provo, Utah and was helping a friend teach a video and photography class. As hard as we tried, most kids were unencumbered with trivial burdens such as planning a scene, storyboarding, dialogue, special effects. They were there to make slime videos and so that’s what we gave them. Though, two girls in particular were real students. They came almost weekly and made themselves the directors, producers and writers of this how-to-make-slime/stop motion animation/horror-thriller/ we were making. We watched the five-minute masterpiece as a class. The girls enjoyed it, but found it funny that it wasn’t like what they had seen on YouTube. They remained undeterred, though.

I ran into the girls’ family at a thrift store. The kids were antsy and fidgety as the adults spoke. Their mother told me they wanted to make videos and that the class was really fun for them. For some reason that day, I had been carrying the Flip with me, so I took it out and showed it to them. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to pass off this thing, with all its weight, and all its pain. In their hands, it was light and nimble, though. It had only one button and some arrows, so I only did a brief tutorial before they took off with it. I hope I didn’t curse them.