Comments on: Is Utah our Mecca?

By: lamonte

lamonte — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:43:53 +0000

Carina – thanks for your thoughtful words. You obviously live by the motto that every place we choose to live has its positive elements and we should spend great effort in trying to find them. My experience in Utah was not as positive as yours has been. As I look back on those years I am convinced that it had as much to do with my own attitude as anything else. I did not experience the diversity you have obviously discovered and I often felt stuck in the middle – between the active church members who sometimes acted like they never learned any lessons about the persecutions experienced by their ancestors and the non-members who spent most of their time whining about the big, bad, oppressive Mormon church but who would never think of moving elsewhere because the lifestyle was so nice in Utah. When I return to the west to visit family and friends my initial reaction is that I could never return to live in the desert among the homogenous Mormons. But after just a few days there my thoughts begin to change and finally, when it is time to say goodbye, I wish I could stay longer. Then I board the plane and return to the East coast and eventually end up in my neighborhood and I feel at home again. My life is different here and my “testimony” is so much stronger. For me it had to do with having to defend, or at least seriously consider, my religion for the first time in my life. And that fact changed my life.

This past October I was able to attend General Conference at the Conference Center for the first time in my life. Even while living in Utah I never attended at the Tabernacle. But that was mostly because I didn’t make any attempt to do so. That visit in October was sort of a pilgrimage for me and I was overwhelmed by the experience. It might be difficult to find an experience in our culture that matches the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca but as to our feelings about where we live, I think we all must find our “home” and then make the most of it. Carina, you have obviously done that.

By: Carina

Carina — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 05:55:53 +0000

I have lived all over: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, the East coast, and traveled extensively. I was primarily raised in Utah, in Provo. My husband is from Florida and Pennsylvania. We love life in Utah so, so much. The other half refuses to move even though we could make a lot more money living someplace else.

I have met people from all over the world while living here. I love that in my neighborhood we have families from Korea, Japan, Uganda, Brazil, Ecuador, Scotland, and half a dozen other countries.

I love that you don’t have to be scared to send your kid to public school. That my child’s principal will probably not be shot to death or his teachers regularly stabbed (as my husband’s were.)

I’ve never lived any place with a better selection of radio stations. I can choose any cuisine I want for dinner. I can pick up fresh tortillas from Tenoch market, dulce de leche at the Argentinian store, rice noodles and fish sauce from the Asian grocery, or grab a burger from Brand X. I can get fry sauce in a restaurant.

I’ve never been to a monster truck rally or hunted animals. I can’t remember the last time we ate jell-o salad. We don’t own guns but we do own lots of modern art–and we vote blue.

Some of the most amazing people I know have proudly called Provo home. They are educated, involved in community and the world around them. I know as many people who married in their 30s as their teens or 20s. I was married six years without kids and never had a single busybody ask me when we were going to have them. I’ve never had people comment on the fact that we only have one child and are in our 30s. I work outside of the house and so do other moms I know.

I have noticed that people who move to Utah either come with a set of poorly conceived notions of what Utahns are or aren’t, or, come with a set of unrealistic ‘holy’ expectations about the people and culture.

Every place on earth has their judgemental idiots; every location has its bad sides. I’m just so happy that I can recognize the beauty of living here. Utah is what you make of it.

As for Mecca, I might call a general conference or a trip to Temple Square as close to a locational Hajj as we get. I think I will agree with other comments that as a true pilgrimage, a trip to the temple fulfills a pillar of our faith and is closet to a spiritual Hajj.

By: lamonte

lamonte — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:03:46 +0000

I find it interesting how some of us who grew up in “Zion” (which for me means a small Mormon community in Idaho just 10 miles form the Utah Border and 100 miles from SLC. I also spent 11 years in the Salt Lake Valley when starting my career.) are glad to be gone. Some of this has to do with my political persuasion and some of it has to do with finding the rest of the world even more interesting. And then at the same time, some church members who have lived there formative years in “the mission field” (sorry CJ Douglass) have a great desire to live in Utah, sometimes even despite their differences politically and socially with the predominant thinking in Utah. As far as the term Mecca, I’ve never really considered Utah such a place. I like the suggestion that the temple could be considered Mecca, especially for those who have had to sacrifice much to get there. I also wonder, however, if our church isn’t so different, certainly than the Islamic religion and even other Christian religions, in our emphasis on the family. A family reunion with every family member present, especially for large Mormon families, might be an event that is just as rare and just as sacred as CJ’s Muslim friend’s pilgramage to Mecca.

By: pick a name, any name...

pick a name, any name... — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 04:45:21 +0000

i adore utah and would move there in a heartbeat, but then again, i also talk about holing my kids up in the mountains of idaho and not letting them off the compound till they’re 40, so… yeah. my husband is of the “i’ll never raise my kids in utah” ilk. i’d be up for missouri, though. we spent some time in adam-ondi-ahman while taking a self-guided church history tour and “felt” something there. what was the name of the town we stayed in… g…? gal…? “felt” something in far west, too. and another “but then again,” i also talk about turning amish, so… yeah. take it for what it’s worth.

By: Rhapsidiomite

Rhapsidiomite — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:40:46 +0000

I think Utah is splendid in many regards, but I do not think of it as Zion in terms of a city. (Zion is probably the most equivalent concept to Mecca, don’cha think?) While the scriptures are very clear about Zion being the pure in heart, they are also perfectly clear about a gathering place in America, i.e., the New Jerusalem, etc.

Modern revelation indicates the center place to be Independence, MO. While we can’t be certain of all things, I for one believe. And I believe it will be quite different than Utah (in general). Specifically, however, I think it will be quite similar to Temple Square, in many regards, in that it will be a *new* place, a place where the arts will flourish (Zion must increase in beauty), where people will be good to each other (Zion must increase in holiness), etc. I can even imagine it becoming a center for everything quintessentially American, as radical a concept as that may seem.

It is difficult to predict, but I do not consider Utah to be Mecca in the long haul. Still, there is the whole Conference thing and Church headquarters. What kind of world event would cause us to uproot and move to Jackson County? I can’t possibly imagine.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:09:24 +0000

What is it about Utah that repels so many of us?

Maybe because both my mom and my sister left the church because of how members treated them while they lived in Utah, while I was away on my mission. Yeah, Utah is not my Mecca. Never will be.

By: Kim Siever

Kim Siever — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:38:24 +0000

Regina, Saskatchewan, is my Mecca, and I try to get out here every year. We made it as far as only Cypress Hill last year though.

By: CJ Douglass

CJ Douglass — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:43:50 +0000

Don,
I failed to mention that I served my mission in Utah. One of the biggest problems I had were members who called outside of Utah \”the mission field\”. The same place I was serving and teaching and baptizing I guess is not the mission field. That cuts deep Don. And I was just starting to really like you:)

By: Don Clifton

Don Clifton — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:31:17 +0000

Sue in #10 said it pretty well for me. I went to college there and own a business in “Happy Valley”, but I thank God I moved and raised my family in Spokane. What a wonderful place the “mission field” is, it made great kids!

By: Nick Literski

Nick Literski — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:07:31 +0000

This “Mecca” discussion reminds me of a funny experience. I was moonlighting as temple security in Nauvoo during the construction and into the first year of operation. As the open house began, tourists naturally began to flow into town. One night, I was making my rounds at about 1:00 a.m. Two women, a mother and daughter aged about 60 and 40, pulled up behind the temple site, got out of their car, and pressed their faces up against the fence in awe of the beautiful, brightly-lit temple. I chatted with them a bit, and found they were from Utah. I made a good-natured joke that I’d “heard of that desert out west,” and the daughter laughed. The mother was highly offended, and exclaimed loudly, “It’s BLOSSOMED like the ROSE!!” The daughter and I both grinned at each other. Then, moments later, the daughter made a comment that will forever represent the Utah point of view in my mind:

“Imagine,” she said, “finding part of OUR culture, out HERE!!!”

I still laugh when I remember it!