Questions I want to ask the Mormon boys walking beside me:
What’s In My Bag Mormon Boi Eddition
Can you give me a What’s In My Bag, Mormon Boi Eddtion?
Because, what on earth are you carrying around in those campy, satchels slung sideways across your torsos?
Where are you from?
Are you happy you got your missionary in Kaurna/Adelaide? Did you wish for someplace more tropical or bigger or busier or closer to salvation? Or were you secretly hoping for somewhere more slick with sin that you could experience at a distance?
What do you talk about all day while walking around?
Surely it can’t just be God? What’s your favourite song? What’s your favourite teaching in Mormonism? What’s a teaching in the bible you don’t agree with? Do you ever while out walking your rounds, want to slip into a strip club and see what else this world can be about?
Do you think God could be a woman?
Do you think she could be waiting tables at The Crazy Horse? What do you do to feel alive? What if sin is just the things they didn’t want you to know about?
Do you think I’m living a sinful life?
What if I told you I’m not afraid of hell but afraid of not living —of not loving— fiercely and tenderly enough? What if I told you fear isn’t enough to stop me, never has and never will be?
What’s your relationship to God like?
Is she nice? Does she tell you it will all be alright? Do you believe her or question her sometimes?
Have you fucked yet?
Are you blushing? Sorry, surely you’ve thought about it. And I’m sorry to say, it’s never as good as thinking about it. But maybe I haven’t sinned hard enough yet or had marital sex. I don’t think a piece of paper and a party would make a difference but I won’t knock it unless I’ve tried it. If you could sin just once without God knowing, which sin would you choose?
Do you feel free?
What does freedom mean, anyway? How is what you do all that different from me? I spend all day spindling away in libraries reading about my own docrines. Some say critical thinking is the difference between our disciplines, do you disagree? Do you believe you think critically about your book? If you had to give an honest book review of the bible, what would be your critiques? Would they have to do with intended audience? Plot holes? Inciting violence? Paradoxes galore?
Would you choose your life?
If you could be born again and choose any life, would you choose yours? Would I choose mine? It’s hard to say but I think I would. And I’d choose, once again, to experience as much in this life as I could.
Would I consider joining the church?
Perhaps one day, if I get bored and lonely and sick of wondering what it’s all about. Would the church accept me or expect me to change? Is change and transcendence one in the same or can we transcend by staying still?
Have you read much on Buddhism?
Neither have I, I’d like to read more one day. Would you? Have you ever watched the Book of Mormon? I haven’t actually seen it, should I? Who are you beyond, above, and around your faith?
What do you think of these outfits you wear?
Do you ever wish you had sleeves? Do you feel vulnerable wearing name tags? How old were you when you learnt to tie a tie? What do Mormon boys wear before ties? Or did you wear them as babies? What do you hope heaven will be like? Do you have to wear a tie in heaven?
Do mormons believe in heaven?
Why can’t heaven be where we are right now? Why do we have to earn it? I’m going to London next week, and I hear there’s a Heaven there.
Do you want to come?
It’s right near Charing Cross Station, they call it a “gay superclub”. Sounds like heaven to me. I hope they play an obnoxious amount of Britney. I won’t be wearing my tie because I don’t know how to tie it by myself yet. If you were there, maybe you could teach me?
With joy,
From Roisin
SLICK WITH SIN. Ooft.
yes to all of this