by Mark G.
This week I was over at a friend’s house. It was late afternoon, normally he and I would both be at work, but he had taken the afternoon off the help me with an engineering problem my group has been struggling with. As my friend usually does, he solved my issue in a few minutes, and as it turns out, I am glad he did. Soon the doorbell rang, and my buddy answered the door calling the visitor by name
Brother Smith (alias) and welcomed him in. The man joined us in the study:
My Buddy: How can I help you?
Bro. Smith: Well this is a hard visit to make, but I came here to rebuke you.
My Buddy: ok… let's get started.
Brother Smith laid out his argument. Specifically about how the church and its leaders including stake presidents and bishops are infallible. My friend listened kindly until a remark was about the evil of scientists and then he snapped a bit.
[First I should tell you that my buddy is very well educated and very, very smart. Like many MMM out there he is an actual, very well regarded scientist. I work for one of the top Oil and Gas companies in the world. My group was stumped at this problem for months; my buddy figured out the issue in less than thirty minutes. Dude is wicked smart. He also collects rare LDS books, literature and journals. More than that he reads them and has about four thousand in his collection.]
Back to the story::: Noticeably irritated He walked around his bookshelves pulling off the book after book flipping to specific pages, pointing to quotes and doctrine from the brethren supporting his view on the topic. Soon the visitor had enough and snapped that all “this” pointing around the room is the problem with my friend, said the church would be better off without members like him. That asking questions just gets people into trouble. My buddy snickered at that, and with his head down said something like Ya, Joseph got into a lot of trouble by asking a question, but then again none of us would be here if he didn’t. He grabbed a copy of Joseph Smith as a scientist, put it in front of the visitor at which he audibly huffed and walked out. My buddy said he felt bad, he usually would never get agitated at stuff like this. but that day, rightfully so, he did.
That experience is not what bothers me the most; it gets worse. My buddy posted about the experience on Facebook. One of the comments to his post was “ I want to see your library” I thought that was kind of funny to say “see” instead of “read” the books in the library, and I know my friend enough to know that bothered him as well. I called him about 2 am this morning (he is an early riser, and I still had a question from work I needed to clarify) and I asked him about the “see” comment. He laughed, ya, I was a little disappointed in that comment, I would have said “read” or “flip through,” but he fits in the good Priesthood manager role well.
ME: STOP: WHAT? he is your Bishop(!)?
Buddy: no, no he is the elder's quorum president.
Me: you're telling me that a member came into your home and told you that the church would be better off if you were not a member in it and all the elder's quorum president had to say after reading it was “ I want to see your library.”
Buddy: I guess so… Don’t stress it I'm told the church would be better off without me in it at least a few times a year.
Me: Did he call you to see if you were ok or PM you?
Buddy: (Chuckling) no, no why would he?
I was stunned. As I am typing this, I still don’t know what to say. And I admit I am bloody furious!!!! So, I will end this post with two points before I lose my temper:
- This that EQP has to allot to learn! I am mystified as to why he would not even check on a member in that situation. in my opnion this is the a great example of the worst leadership we have in the church.
- I met my buddy when he was an EQP; I was inactive, he knocked on my door. My buddy took a quorum that had about nine in it on my first Sunday there, to over sixty in the meeting when he was released. The Lords Church, My church, Our church is MUCH, MUCH BETTER with him and people like him in it!
