Emotional Wak-A-Mole

Testimony meeting is my nemesis.  I typically press my forehead against the bench in front of me, so no one can see my smirks and rolling eyes.  I’ve been known to laugh attack myself right out of the meeting.  In contrast I often do it to hide tears and protect my manhood, holding back a steady stream of emotional diarrhea.  Testimony meeting exposes my inability to control my emotions.   It provokes me, moves me, silences me and irritates me.  It’s like emotional Wak-A-Mole, metaphorically taking random swings at my flighty disposition.   I feel cheated, defenselessly stuck in a pew between fragile toddlers and expected to display charitable good will as illustrated by receptive facial expressions.

In addition testimony meeting is like Russian roulette, firing anecdotes and stories at an unsuspecting audience with an occasional misfire. It allows the unflinching thoughts of random people to unleash what they deem to be spiritually pertinent.  Each person’s perception of what’s spiritually relevant is what dictates the flow of each meeting.   In most cases, the random stories are benign and expressed with good intent.  But some meetings, the concaved indentation on my forehead says it all.

The argument that the gospel is perfect and the members are not is never more readily understood then in testimony meeting.  Vibrant glass-half-fullers edify with positivity, paranoid doomsdayers express their disguised skepticism, and those in between, share through individualized nuances, glimpses into their own spiritual journeys.  I feel like it’s this imperfection that makes church work for me.  It’s the imperfection that makes it perfect. 

As my throbbing forehead presses the hard wood I listen as the stories and testimonies detail sadness, hope, triumph and faith.  A hodgepodge of people commonly linked by geography opening themselves to each other like some sort of group therapy session.  It’s both awkward and invigorating.  I cringe, cry, laugh, grimace and secretly mock.  The human condition is filled with fear, doubt and insecurity.  It’s also filled with courage, pride and ego; and combined with an open microphone, it can be telling. 

Testimony meeting is a freestanding invitation to share openly.  In my last ward, several members stood and declared themselves addicts and pinpointed exact years and months of sobriety.  They seemed to instill a great deal of support from one another.  Unabashedly and without shame some share secrets and personal matters as if everyone in the meeting needs to know.  One mother pleas for prayers for her rebellious teen, another man plants seeds of his political agenda to run for office in the fall.  A five year old “buries” her testimony deep into the hearts of the congregation and tells the audience her dying daddy is sick and will be better soon.    It’s the sharing that evokes emotion and helps us all feel connected.  Helps us feel needed and loved.  Perfecting the saints, right.   

My forehead presses harder, tears swell and start to trickle.  Ego urges my eyes to stay fixed at the broken cheerios on the carpet floor.   Don’t look up.  Don’t let anyone see me.  Nobody can know I’m human after all.