Probably should have titled this General Conference, Part 2, because I'm just not done with it yet.
The LDS church's General conferences happen in April and October. Various church leaders speak (mostly men with a token woman to give the proceedings a faint whiff of inclusivity). The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs. Church members get stories, instruction and directives to ponder until the next conference.
Mormons with cable access watch the proceedings from home in their jammies. Tech-savvy folks stream or download conference from the Internet. Those without cable, computers or who want to see the priesthood session Saturday night (which isn't on cable) have to schelp to their local church building to watch the satellite feed. This is what we all used to do, back in the day.
I'm not a regular general conference watcher. It's part disinterest, part self-preservation and part general annoyance.
The lilting speech patterns specific to the Salt Lake East Bench are like fingernails on chalkboard for me. Even though one of my English professors insisted the guy with the worst cadence had done some speech therapy work, it wasn't enough for me to get past his delivery.
Another thing that annoys me: the reverential tones used to utter not only the names but also the initials in church authorities' names: Gordon Beeeeeee Hinckley. Boyd Kaaaaaay Packer. Thomas Essssssssss Monson. Took me years to figure out it was David O. McKay, not David O'Mckay. Only new converts who don't know better or disaffected/former church members dare leave out the initial!
But it's not just the old guard turning their initials into part of their title. The younguns are doing it, too. Jeff Holland, former president of BYU (in whose official space I once parked) has morphed into Jeffrey R. Holland. Maybe he always was Jeffrey R., but it seems to me the R. was more aggressively attached after he became a general authority. Or Spencer Condie, my former sociology professor. He's now marketed as Spencer J. (JAY) Condie.
I've seen lesser ranked church leaders do the initial thing, too. I wonder if they feel they MUST use an initial-as-name to be considered upwardly mobile?
If you don't like or use your middle name, why use its initial? I always want to know what hideous name is hiding behind that enigmatic initial.
Recently, the initials-as-substitutional-names makes me think of Eminem. What if all these weirdly monikered old guys rapped their conference talks? Now that I'd tune in for.
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The lilting speech patterns specific to the Salt Lake East Bench are like fingernails on chalkboard for me. Even though one of my English professors insisted the guy with the worst cadence had done some speech therapy work, it wasn't enough for me to get past his delivery.
I hate that too! You can always tell a conference talk.
My parents always drive up to our summer cabin on a nearby mountain for the first time of the season each conference weekend. Because it's cool to hang out in the mountains in early April and because they have satellite radio up there, you can't be at the cabin without hearing some of conference, though I try to go for a walk or something during most of it. The last time I heard any of conference was when that one guy (I have no idea who) gave that dreadful talk about "unquestioning obedience is not blind obedience." Rriiiigghhhhttt! And my normally critical family all just nodded in agreement. Nothing Orwellian about that situation....
The initial thing... I don't know where that started in Mormon history. Perhaps it started with the run of Joseph Smiths in the church...Joseph Smith, Sr.; Joseph Smith, Jr.; Joseph F. Smith; Joseph Fielding Smith. As a result, the initials stuck, I guess.
It's also a cultural thing in Utah, I think. I always write and sign my name "Janet M. Kincaid." Why? I don't know. I always have. Everyone else in Utah did when I was growing up, so it just seemed natural. Now it's a habit and I try as I might to change it, I can't.
By the way, the M stands for Marlene.
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