One day after mopping up another tobacco
spit covered floor while coughing up lungfulls of second hand smoke, Emma
decided something wasn't right. How
could such filthy unhealthy habits be of God?
In this very room the most divine revelations were discussed, creating
an absurd contradiction of the most pure and lofty ideals being discussed in a
pig sty that she was supposed to clean up after. She was talking to a friend one day and
mentioned that she had decided tobacco just didn't seem to be of God and she
would ask Joseph to pray about it for a revelation. Her friend, who up to that point had been
sympathetically listening, suddenly blanched with fright. "But Joseph is the prophet, if God had
meant the church leaders to stop chewing tobacco wouldn't he already have been
told?"
Emma replied "But he's never
thought about it before. Smoking and
spitting for the brethren is a habit, not a revelation. Just asking the question couldn't hurt."
But for some reason she never got
around to asking, or Joseph was too busy to talk to her. Word got around though that she had a
question in her mind. Soon her visiting
teachers brought it up. Emma was
surprised they even cared, but next thing the visiting teachers were talking up
how concerned they were for her spiritual welfare. "What has not liking cleaning up tobacco
spit and breathing in smoke have to do with my spiritual welfare? I just think I should have a right to have a
home not polluted by adult spit up and smoke smell. This place is hard enough to clean without
them spewing all over it. At least they
could actually try not to miss the spittoon part of the time."
"Well, you should know that as
a woman you aren't supposed to ask for your rights. All women in the church know that God hasn't
given them the keys to ask for anything for themselves. Our place is just to quietly accept what we
are told."
Emma was confused, what did asking
questions and having opinions have to do with spiritual gifts or rights? And since when was she lobbying for
anything? She just wanted to get Joseph
to ask God a question. Joseph didn't
seem to believe her that cleaning tobacco juice and breathing smoke should be
any burden at all. It was supposedly
part of her womanly role. The whole
cigarettes are a masculine symbol, cleaning is what women do, so cleaning up
the liquid emissions of chewed tobacco as a woman was a symbol of her divine
role as a sexual recipient of male emissions from the parts of the man symbolized
by the pointy cigarette and fat cigar.
He really needed to stop reading the Freud. If Joseph wouldn't listen to her then maybe
he would listen to God on the subject if he would just ask the question. After a few heated exchanges about whether
she was allowed to ask questions or lobby for her rights her visiting teachers
left, and Emma was sure she would never let them bring up the subject
again. The idea of change just scared
them too much.
More time passed, and to Emma's
surprise more women came to her sympathizing that they also failed to get any
spiritual or symbolic benefit from cleaning up tobacco juice off their
floors. They all hated cleaning it, they
all hated breathing it. Many thought
that it was their proper burden as women, a cross to carry as called upon by
God and the men in their lives. Many
were willing to say it was just wrong.
Some of them even looked up what was known about tobacco from medical
journals and it started to be known how unhealthy it was for the men, and how
second hand smoke actually increased the chance of miscarriage, hurting their
femininity rather than somehow vaguely symbolizing it. Some didn't care about that and simply wanted
to be able to smoke themselves without facing social judgment. While most would give assent to that idea in
theory, given how bad smoking is for you, that opinion was pretty rare to find,
but people who thought they knew best talked about it as if it was all women
wanted.
Emma's Bishop called her in and
told her that since spittoons were in the temple they were obviously of God along with all the tobacco juice on the
floor that went with it and
she should stop being such a heretic. Emma felt that spittoons
were in the temple because the brethren had put them there, not because God put
them there. She didn't appreciate being
called a heretic. The Bishop wouldn't
apologize or even discuss the matter reasonably. It was for her to obey him, nothing else
mattered. He threatened to take away
Emma's temple recommend because she wouldn't accept tobacco as being ordained
of God. Emma dared to let him try and
find out what Joseph would say, and decided to ignore the Bishop.
Rumors started to fly in the
ward. People said that Emma wasn't a
true believer. They said that if she
wasn't on board with all the doctrinal and non doctrinal assumptions of the
church she shouldn't even belong, no matter how much she believed in everything
else. Since it was mainly women who
expressed concern about this, members of the church, encouraged by church
leadership, started spreading rumors that she and her friends were
lesbians. That was particularly
hurtful. Just because Joseph wanted
relations with extra women didn't mean she did.
Not that the consensual relationships between the lesbians she knew had
much comparison to the "marry me or God will kill you" or "marry
me and you and all your extended family will be guaranteed exaltation
automatically just as a reward for your sacrifice" or "you can marry
me and your husband, just love both of us" deals that Joseph was cutting. People started to stop her in the street and
yell at her, commanding her in the name of God to stop her anti tobacco
campaign. People called for her to be
excommunicated if she ever mentioned the subject again. One radical even said she and everyone like
her should be killed. The ward's
response was much more moderated. Since
she had discussed it in Relief Society and the idea had gained popularity
there, the Relief Society was dissolved as a den of heresy. Emma herself was told she couldn't hold
callings until she recanted or if she stopped looking the wrong way- apparently
someone told the stake presidents that women wearing the color black meant that
they were secretly anti tobacco.
Apparently the fact that Emma was in mourning for her latest dead child
didn't matter very much- she looked wrong.
It all came down to that revelation
in the church wasn't supposed to come through asking questions. Or at least not most of the time for day to
day stuff. Revelation came through
tradition. Smoking and chewing tobacco
was a traditional activity for men, and since the church represented God's chosen
people then all of the traditions of the church were chosen as God's chosen
doctrines, along with all the traditional reasons given to explain the
traditions. The traditions had been in
place for so long it was assumed that the leaders being in tune with the spirit
would have resulted in a revelation already.
No additional knowledge was needed or desired. Anyone who wanted new knowledge was simply
wrong because they violated the doctrine of tradition. If men didn't smoke, it would be erasing the
differences between men and women and that was that.
Eventually, the noise from all the
fuss got above the day to day level where tradition ruled, and caused even the
leaders to doubt. Doubt allows sincere
questions to be asked in faith, nothing wavering. Faith and study lead to revelation. The word of wisdom replaced the word of
tradition. The announcement was
proclaimed with a special explanation that it wasn't in response to any social
pressures or social movement, but was pure revelation. Years later, Emma was described as having
been right all along with all the leadership of her time being in lock step
with her idea of how a husband can respect a wife's clean floor. Only later scholarship would reveal the Hero
Emma was.
Oh, I need to give credit where credit is due. I was inspired by Ursula K. LeGuin's short story "The Rock that Changed Things" when I wrote this, which would probably be obvious to anyone who had read both.
ReplyDeleteThis was really very wonderful to read. I'm glad I am able to read it.
ReplyDelete