Why we sent our kid on a mission

I know that some of you folks dear to me are LDS and some are not.  And since the mission thing, which is a normal part of the LDS expectation, is NOT normal to most people, I thought maybe I’d explain why I would do such a weird and difficult thing as sending my kid off into the blue for two years.  This is not, by the way, an explanation of LDS beliefs.  It’s just me thinking this through.

As part of this, though, I do have to explain some of my personal beliefs in my personal way so we have a basis of understanding Me. 

WARNING: the following opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those held officially by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

Two general points:

First, I believe that God designed the system we know presently as reality and thus, that he knows how it works.  He knows all the function keys and shortcuts, and he knows the processes.  So if you want to get from point A to point B, he’s the guy to go to.

[Of course, in doing that you end up having to refer to the words that prophets from the beginning of time have put down on paper – flawed words (but then, that’s redundant – words are at once a rich and problematic communicative strategy), but semi-permanent if you use a good vector and nobody throws your vector away. But at least you have resource material.  Along with the mystical component of prayer, and the more scientific one of observation and conclusion.]

And because this is actually a functional system, there are laws.  Not human stabs at law-making, but the immutable kind—like gravity, or like “If you take enough Ipecac, eventually you are going to blow all your chunks,” or like “You can’t run iPhoto, Photoshop and iTunes at the same time on an iMac, even with a gig of ram, without really slowing down performance.”  You can argue all you want with these laws—weep, whine, persuade—and you won’t get anywhere.

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Second:  When He established his children as individuals—important individuals in his eyes—he also allowed them the right and freedom to figure things out on their own.  To be creative.  To choose.  In fact, he encourages this.  They can’t change the system though, and so they either learn (through exploration and experiment—blundering—and listening to others’ conclusions) to follow the system manual or they end up blundering forever, always trying to work out their own path, and quite often up-yoursing anything that smacks of being in the manual.  Either way, we’re going to find pain, because that’s simply part of the mortal environment.  In a lot of ways, it’s up to us to decide how much pain is going to characterize our time here.  If I can reduce mine, I’m going to do that.  If I can reduce yours, I’ll try to do that, too—as far as I have resources to do that.

Which is why I work so hard with my kids.  Every choice I have ever made has had an impact on the lives of my kids.  At one point, it was for kids I hadn’t even imagined yet.  Then it was for kids I had.  Now it’s still for them, but also for the kids my own kids will have.

Though I never really realized it till this morning in the shower—just about the only place you can ever actually hear yourself think—every effort I have made to be a good person from the very beginning of my life—an honest person, a dependable, responsible person—all of this has been for the sake of saving my kids pain and pointing them in the direction of health, happiness and safety.

And this is exactly what missionaries are there for.  For the people who weren’t lucky enough to have parents who knew how to live for their kids’ sakes.  Or for people who couldn’t hear their parents’ voices.  To save them pain.  To teach them how to grab joy.

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 It was hard to send my kids away.  Two years without visits is a long, long time, though those of you who have followed M’s adventures know there’s plenty of communication going on.   Some of you have said to me wonderingly, “LDS women just seem so peaceful with this. They just take it in stride.”  Well, yeah, I guess some LDS women are like that.  And there are some who are so glad to get the dang kid out of the house (doing something constructive), that they do the dance of joy and shout, “Don’t let the door hit you in the back-side, now!” as the kid leaves.

  For us, it was having your best friend move across country.  Or across the planet.  It was like a big hole torn in the fabric of our lives.  We were down one laugh, one singer, one problem solver, one hand of King and Scum.  It makes us limp.  All of us.  The fact that Gin lives as far across the continent as you can get does almost the same thing, but I know I can see her and interrupt her life anytime I want to fork out the bucks.  And she can come see me.

 But once you leave on a mission, you are committed to a two year project – no vacations, no visits – just service, focus – your head entirely in the game. 

This may sound scary to you, considering the weird groups of people who show up in the news sometimes, cults that separate people from normal life and guardians and then from their money.  And sometimes, eventually, from their lives. 

While this mission may end up costing all my money (if this stupid financial crisis doesn’t heal itself pretty quick – and not ALL, just $350 a month – and besides, M saved up enough money to pay for it himself), you’ve seen enough of Murphy’s dumb pictures to suspect that if he’s being brainwashed, it’s basically by clowns. (actually, mission Presidents are a very serious, dedicated lot.  If there’s a clown, it’s going to be the senior companion)

            We do this for two reasons: for other people, and for the kid.

            How many kids do you know would earn enough money to buy a car and then spend it on a two year trip where all they get to do is work their butts off helping people, and trying to share their beliefs?  Cammon, on his mission, helped in all kinds of service, cleaning up yards and parks, assisting handicapped horseback riders, whatever needed to be done.  Missionaries help with flood and disaster clean-up, that kind of thing.  But most of the help is more personal than that.

 We don’t send the kids out to save people from hell.  Not the fire and brimstone hell.  The only hell LDS people believe in, anyway, is the one cobbled together by people themselves: a prison of regret and unrealized potential.  But that’s a discussion for another day. 

 Life is a puzzle. Is it worth two years of my time with my kid, if that kid helps even one person to figure out how to be happier?  Healthier?  Stronger?  You betcha.  If M can help just one family learn to be more functional, more committed, more pulled-together and patient with each other, then he has made the world better.  So, in that way, what we do is invest two years of our own happiness in a stronger, more loving world.  Which translates to me thus: he is there to teach people as much as he knows about the real system that has real laws, and to explain the processes that we have found to work so well in our own lives. 

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            The benefits for the kids?  You get this kid back who’s lived on his or her own, who’s seen real poverty, real riches – who has gotten his hands dirty.  He’s had the chance to become acquainted with the real awful and wonderful things of life – not through TV scripts, but through learning to love people who have been through pretty much every misery, trial, joy, pain, triumph there is.  He gets to learn to love people who aren’t like him—culturally, economically, traditionally.  Many of these missionaries learn to see the world through a language that jerks them out of their own context.  They become acquainted with different cultures, different governments, different architecture.  They get a clear chance to put other people first.  They of offered the chance to learn discipline and endurance.  They may weep the tears of Godly, loving sorrow, and they can feel the incredible feeling of true relief. 

A mission is a great place to grow up.

            Not all the missionaries take what’s offered.  Some fail to grow.  And that’s sad.  I do not pretend that the members of this church are anywhere near perfect.   But so many of these kids come back to their families incredibly prepared to face their adult lives – focused, ready to make a choice and make it work.  And better, much better prepared to love.

            University tuition costs me a heck of a lot more, for classes that too often aren’t worth anywhere near what this is worth. (Lucky me—I got to shell out for both.)

            Understand that I feel every day that my kid is gone.  Don’t doubt it.  I cried my way through the  year before each kid left, and I get sentimental even now, counting days till I see my M again.  But if he comes back like Cam, then this hard, hard thing is so worth it.  So worth it.

            I just wanted to explain.  So when you see the mothers of this church doing this thing – know that it isn’t easy.  It isn’t automatic.  It isn’t simple.  It’s definitely a choice, a tough one.  But it’s also an investment.

            And who doesn’t want to live in a better world? 

            So there you go.  That’s why.