Pioneer Day

I just discovered that Pioneer Day is a paid holiday at my work. To say that I am happy would be an understatement.

Trek

One more post about being Mormon: Trek.  WTF. 

 

If you aren’t familiar with Trek, it’s where people dress up as pioneers and pull handcarts across comparatively long distances.  Usually this is an activity that is foisted on the teenagers of the Mormon church, though adults and children sometimes do it too.  When I was a teenager it wasn’t called Trek, but we still had to do it.  This week, my ward (congregation) took all their teenagers out to Wyoming for Trek, so I thought it would be a good time to revisit this topic. 

 

First, Trek is just about the stupidest activity I can think of.  Now, before you write me off, keep in mind that some people enjoy Trek and others don’t.  If you are one of the people who likes it, great.  You should keep doing it.  However, when it comes to the youth of the Church, generally everyone goes, regardless of their personal preference.  For the sake people who hate it (like myself), I believe that we should stop making it a required activity.  In other words, we should stop pretending that there is some inherent value in dressing up and making-believe that we are living in the most miserable moments of Mormon history.

 

The Mormon handcart pioneers truly had a really miserable time.  I appreciate their strength and perseverance, but I don’t think they became pioneers because they loved the lifestyle.  Their activities were a result of necessity and though those activities built character, it wasn’t anyone’s favorite thing to do.  Thus, I don’t think the original pioneers would have approved of people wasting their time reenacting their experiences.  Did the pioneers reenact the most horrific moments from the Revolutionary War?  Instead, I think that the pioneers would have wanted us to move forward.  We can use our time for all sorts of things (service, spreading the gospel, being with our families, etc.), but Trek is none of those things.  Instead, Trek focuses entirely on the self and personal growth (arguably a selfish use of time).  The self and personal growth are fine, of course, but isn’t the gospel of Christ about serving others?  Shouldn’t that be our primary focus and way we use most of our time? 

 

What’s more, some people don’t even really achieve any personal growth from Trek.  The problem is that not everyone has transcendent, spiritual experiences by being outside and pulling fake handcarts.  So while one person’s off hearing angels or whatever, someone else is just really pissed off about being covered in dirt and wearing fake old-timey clothes.  For those (youth) leaders who would say that the pissed-off people just have an attitude problem, ask yourself if you really think that everyone experiences religion and transcendence in the same way.  If your answer is yes, I suppose we have more to disagree about then Trek.  On the other hand, I think that most people would acknowledge that different individuals have different tastes and ways of understanding, which would necessitate different approaches to spirituality.

 

Ultimately, some people who love Trek appear to have somehow persuaded everyone else that we should all experience religion in exactly the same way.  Unfortunately, that way is, in my opinion, a waste of time and a simulacrum of true spirituality.