What in the Weird--?

I was reading a marvelously good thread about weirdos in Sacrament meeting (and other places, but mostly Sacrament meeting), and it caused me to reminisce about my childhood ward.

Every LDS ward has at least one weirdo in it—you know who I mean: The girl who, every Sacrament meeting without fail, picks her nose with a Kleenex when she thinks no one is looking (even when she's sitting in the front of the room) and then tucks the used Kleenex down the front of her dress for safekeeping; the gentleman who thinks "bearing testimony" means to get up and tell you his life story, including why he left his wife, why you should vote for him as the next mayor of Provo, and how many angels visited him last night (and the bishop invariably has to get up and add a word about how none of it was appropriate, nor true); or the "fun young mom" who keeps whisking away the ward's missionaries for outings at the beach. Yeah.

The ward I grew up in had an overabundance of wack-jobs from the sweet little primary chorister who believed in the healing properties of crystals—and talked about it frequently—to good ol' Brother C who shouted everything he said, especially while the sacrament was being passed. But the strangest of them all, the one who caused everyone to tremble in anticipation just before fast and testimony meeting began, the one the teachers tried (vainly) to avoid eye contact with while teaching a lesson, the one who will go down in ward history as the freakiest of the freaks: my mother. I was the daughter of the strangest woman in the ward, and I'm proud of it. (Sort of. Now that I live many, many miles away.) Would you like to hear more? Okay.

My mom loves opera. She took some classes in college, and learned a lot about projection and vibrato (unfortunately, not much about dynamic levels below forte). When it is time to sing a hymn, she gives it everything she's got, and it's quite considerable. I have witnessed small children in the pews several rows ahead of us cover their ears and turn around to see where all the noise is coming from. I have watched my brothers try to find some other place to sit—as if that would hide their parentage or something. Me, I used to try to have private singing contests with her (that I never won, of course; I couldn't even hear myself over the din). But the older members of the ward love her. "Ah, Sister Scott, you have the loveliest voice!" Because, after all, they could actually hear her.

She has also learned to play the organ in the past decade or so—entirely self-taught—and is always completely willing to play anywhere and everywhere that anyone has need of her. She has been known to go to three sacrament meetings in a day so that she can play the organ. She has keys to the chapel, of course, so she can practice, but Dad had to ask her not to go after certain hours in the evening after a story got back to him about the chapel being completely lit up at 2 am and organ music flowing out from it into the crisp morning air...

She regularly gets up in Fast and Testimony meeting and bears her testimony of what everyone in the ward is doing incorrectly and how they should repent.

In Relief Society (which she told me repeatedly while I was growing up was "just a bunch of dumb women gossipping") she will testify of the truths found in things such as the Book of Enoch, the Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls—but the Book of Mormon, you know, is pretty pedestrian and she has nothing more to learn from it. (Could this be why the general authorities counsel us to avoid religious hobbies? Hmm... But there's more! Just wait!)

She has frequently had visions—mostly of things burning—and sometimes she will paint pictures of them. Hanging in her home are...let's see...a picture of Enoch in his chariot of fire, a montage of prophets as translated beings (that looks to me like the souls of the damned), three pictures of Jerusalem burning at different points in history (my favorite having Arafat in one corner and Ariel Sharon in the other), and one portrait of the most pissed-off-looking Christ you will ever behold. All originals.

In the backyard, she had a custom playhouse built for the grandkids that is really quite amazing—fully furnished, rigged with electricity and even a TV and VCR—nothing too strange about that (but it does remind me of the witch in Hansel and Gretel on some level). But in an upstairs corner, which can be closed off from the rest of the room by drawing a curtain, there is a small antique table, candle, and a replica of the golden plates so the kids can pretend to be Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery anytime they like. There are also costumes nearby that they can wear as well. (Not that any of them do—they'd rather play at being pirates.) I haven't yet caught her pretending to translate the plates, but I have my suspicions.

Ah, my writing cannot do her justice! I think the only way you could truly appreciate her would be to take a roadtrip with her. There's nothing like being trapped in a car with a talkative woman for hours on end to reveal the...uniqueness...of her thinking. If only, if only, you could all meet her!

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Possible FAQs about this post:

Q: Have you ever seen a therapist? Sorry if that's a bit personal, but we can't help wondering.
A: Yes.

Q: Do you think you can post some of your mother's original artwork?
A: Sorry, no. I wish I could, but it's a four-hours' drive, you know? And I'm sure she'd be suspicious if she caught me taking them off the wall and trying to scan them.

Q: Wynne, what do the pictures in this post have to do with anything?
A: Nothing. Nothing at all.