The Crushing Burden of Reverence

On Sunday I got into a discussion with a friend at church about how difficult it is to keep my children reverent during church. Admittedly, we have worked VERY hard on helping them get through the torture of sacrament meeting, and they do quite well considering, but it is still tough. She sent me an article from Feminist Mormon Housewives. (For the record, I do NOT recommend this blog- it has some very fringe ideas and I don't read it- but I LOVED this post)

I don't know if I'm technically allowed to share this article, but I'm just a small little blog that just my friends and family reads, so I'm hoping I won't get in trouble. If you think I should get in trouble, leave a comment and I'll remove the article.

But because I thought some of you might really enjoy it, and also because if I ever get asked to give a talk on reverence I will probably just read this article word for word over the pulpit, I thought I would share it with you all:

The Crushing Burden of Reverence

by Heather

Several years ago, I graduated third in my class, summa cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in Russian Literature. Several minutes ago, I fished a boardbook out of the toilet that my little boy had thrown in while I was changing his twin brother. Can you see why I felt compelled to mention the first thing?
I’ve been to Stanford Law School and studied opera performance at Peabody Conservatory. I’ve cut a solo CD and reigned over a rodeo and demolition derby as Miss Beaver County. I’ve worked at law firms, sung high-C’s in concert halls and opera houses, taught LSAT prep, and critiqued a whole lot of Russian literature. But I find myself for this period of time staying home with my kids. Well, that’s a little misleading. I leave the house every chance I get.

Heather blogs at http://putthatonyourblog.com/

The kid behind me on the airplane kept kicking my seat. It was a long flight, about 6 hours, and he’d kicked it a few times during the first 4. Somewhere around 4.5 hours in, he started repeatedly kicking my seat. I didn’t like children much, and in those days I didn’t know the first thing about them. I thought:
Doesn’t that lady realize her kid is kicking my seat? She must not even be paying attention. Sheesh! People with kids should just drive or stay home until their kids can behave. Why do they make everyone else pay the consequences of their life choices?

I turned around and said, “Could you please ask him to stop kicking my seat?”

Years later the good Lord probably wore a wry little smile when he blessed me with twin boys.

Now that the tables have turned, I recently found myself thinking:

Will this plane ride never end? For the love of all that is holy, Dear Lord, please make this kid stop kicking that lady’s seat! There is nothing in this world or the next I have ever wanted or will ever want more than for this child to stop kicking her seat. Why can’t everyone stop dying and getting married for just a few years until these kids are manageable on a plane?

These experiences were brought vividly back to my memory recently as I sat through the latest installment of my ward’s reverence initiative. Although the RS lesson was perfectly unobjectionable and in fact, quite good, it came hard on the heels of a full Sacrament devoted to reverence. I couldn’t help but feel like these constant calls to reverence are really a version of me turning around and asking the mother to stop her kid from kicking my airplane seat. The theory seems to be that the mothers of the ward don’t know their kids are kicking the seat and if it’s just brought to their attention, they’ll somehow be able to stop the kicking.
Believe me, we are aware. No one is more aware than the mothers. During Sacrament meeting my entire body is electrified, hair on end, attuned to every sound and movement of my three toddlers (I also have a 5 year-old daughter). I am at 100% full awareness of our ward’s reverence problem.

Let me be clear, I love reverence. I crave reverence, perhaps these days more than ever. Peace, calm and quiet are like sunshine and water to my soul—and a primary motivator in temple attendance. Unfortunately, the obligatory biannual talks on reverence do not imbue me with the super power to keep three toddlers silent and motionless in six square feet of space for 70 to 90 minutes each week.

The burden of reverence falls disproportionately upon the shoulders of the Sisters of the church, especially when their children are infants. In part, this is a matter of practicality while infants are nursing and because a sizeable percentage of families are there without the father. In addition, though, it seems reverence is considered a nurturing responsibility not a presiding responsibility. Hence, the eyes of scorn turn most frequently to the mother of the noise-maker, not the father.

If you want a quiet church, there are plenty of them out there. Most of the other churches I’ve attended or sung for provide a nursery for children during the main meeting. Other “family friendly” churches invite families with young children to listen to the audio or watch a video feed of the main meeting with their children in a “training room” before they graduate to the back pew when their children turn 2 (iPad age).
Our policy of worshipping as families, though not wholly unique, is far from the standard and does make us a bit different. We are members of a pronatalist church that encourages its members to have children and lots of them. Still, year after year and despite other options, church policy is that we invite families to come to Sacrament meeting together.

The chapel is a place for reverence, but it is not the temple. The expectation that sacrament meeting in a family ward will ever be as reverent as in a singles ward or a the temple is divorced from reality. There are no kids taking out their endowments. There is no more reverent place on earth than the celestial room of a temple. When we expect temple-like reverence in a family setting, too often parents of young children get pushed out of full membership in the church. Many mothers on their blogs and in person have reached out with empathy to me saying, “It gets better.” They assure us young moms that it is perfectly normal to spend up to nine years in the halls chasing children around the periphery of meetings hoping some kind of spirituality or knowledge will waft out to us like secondhand smoke. Isn’t something amiss when our stated policies and tacit expectations create a whole subcategory of members who attend the halls but not the church?

The reverence policy seems to be, let’s tell the mothers to keep their kids quiet, and it will all be fine. Other mothers have spent 9 years in the halls before, and they are fine.

Have you noticed the mother silently weeping in the coat room? She spent hours this morning getting her little children pressed and combed and up to Sister Beck’s Sunday Standard. She has a testimony to share in Sacrament meeting. She has a comment you should hear in Sunday School. She has a desperate need and almost physical hunger for the rejuvenation of a spiritual meeting. But she also has a child who can’t meet your standard of reverence. Brethren and sisters, she is not fine.

The teacher asked us to brainstorm what each of us could do individually to promote reverence. Some suggested singing or listening to hymns with children before church. Others suggested touring the church with children to inspire them with respect for their place of worship. Some women settle their kids into the pews early. Some wear theirs out on the playground before church. All of these suggestions were helpful to me, and may become more helpful still as my children’s ability to comprehend and communicate grows.
I googled “keeping children quiet in church” and read a dozen articles whose advice usually broke down to three things: snacks, Slinky’s and screens. I even read some Mormon mommy blogs who in addition to suggesting snacks, Slinky’s and a screens, suggested bribing kids with cookies and threatening kids with the judgment of God. I’m going to use the cookie thing.

Instead of placing the entire burden of reverence on individual mothers, I started brainstorming ways to promote reverence as a ward. Here are some ideas that I and the friends I’ve discussed this with have suggested:

1. End the meeting on time. The volume of a family ward seems to rise steadily as the meeting progresses then spike up sharply in the last 10 minutes. When the meeting goes into extra innings, the parents are out of snacks and toys, and their kids are out of patience. Both have spent their daily allotment of self-control. There are many reasons a meeting might run long, but most of these can be anticipated and worked out beforehand.

2. A training room. Many parents with young kids would appreciate the option to watch a video feed of Sacrament meeting in a room with people in their situation. Similarly, many would be happy to attend a Sunday School class for parents with babies and very young children. (incidentally, this is Christina speaking, I suggested in a ward council that we have a separate Sunday School for parents with kids in that horrible 10-18 month range and was quickly shot down)

3. Visual aids to draw children’s attention toward the stand. I remember spending hours contemplating the two large paintings of Jesus on the back wall on either side of the pulpit in the ward I grew up in. My 5 year-old even glances up from her drawings when there are interesting flowers on the stand.

4. A bulletin insert of gospel related activities for kids.

5. A basket of “church packs” with crayons, paper or toys outside the chapel. Though most parents bring these anyway, apparently the novelty of having their own “church pack” each week helps kids in one Pennsylvania ward substantially.

6. More sacrament talks that engage children on their level. If we want them to pay attention, we may have to occasionally say something they can understand. I remember the visceral agony of sitting through my first Shakespeare play at age 8. I couldn’t follow what was going on and lived in fear of a violent shushing from my mother. I grew up to like Shakespeare, fortunately, but I don’t want to risk of my kids being turned off of church for good by a weekly experience like that.

I am not saying that Sacrament meeting should be like Chuck E. Cheese where a kid can be a kid, but I do think it is right and fair to ask mothers to enforce a standard of reverence in their families only after we’ve put in place the institutional supports that make it a practical possibility to do so.


Can you see why I love this article???