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I saw a pop-star I’ve admired for about 20 years, live in concert recently — Lisa Loeb, if you know her music. She had a phenomenal CD called Firecracker some time ago. I loved every song on it. For some reason, I bonded with her personna, her music, and what I thought was her intellectual prowess. Given her lyrics, and reviews of her music, as well as her background, I thought she was some kind of introspective intellectual. When I saw her live, it was a disappointment. The music was decent most of the time — I got over the fact she didn’t bring her band, but there was more — she engaged in a lot of banter that I thought was extraneous and actually detracted from the night. Minute details about her day, and what she did yesterday — broken sentences and a few statements that didn’t make sense. At times it was like a conversation I wanted to leave.
There wasn’t a lot of stimulating commentary between songs (if any) about what they meant, like I was expecting. And worst of all, she forgot the words and the chords to the songs in a number of places.
Had me thinking about pedestals — as a local performer/musician myself, she fell off mine. J
Anyway, got me thinking about how we put our Church leaders on pedestals….but in the case of Lisa Loeb, I figured I’d keep buying her music. I wouldn’t hold my unmet expectations against her. Just because she disappointed me with not being the kind of person I thought she was, and just because she didn’t perform professionally, as I expected, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy her recorded music, or maybe even a poster.
Just because church leaders at all levels may behave badly, doesn’t mean we can’t embrace other aspects of the experience — that we can keep buying the music (such as the community, if you feel part of it, the impact on our children, etcetera). The music from these artists is still good…they are just average people like the rest of us.
I think it must be very hard for people to live up to people’s expectations of them. Taylor Swift is big in my home. The music is good and clean. But more than that – her behavior offstage makes her someone that DW and I are comfortable with as a role model for DD. Everything I have read about her points to her being a classy, giving, and thoughtful person. Does she behave that way because that is just her nature or might she feel boxed in by what her fans expect of her? What sort of behavior could it reasonably be said that she “owes” her fans? Interesting questions.
I sometimes wonder what it might be like to be married to a GA. I assume that everyone has unflattering features and quirks. I imagine a woman married to a man and coming to know the quirks and then having him receive a call that seems reserved for people that are especially holy. I wonder if his new calling would change the way she looked at him or if, to her, he would always be the same endearing quirky guy she married. Might this change the way she looks at GA’s in general?
I read somewhere (I believe a biography of Marjorie Hinckley) that Sister Hinckley had cried herself to sleep on many anight during their (early) marriage. This was very helpful to me because it showed that even future GA’s can be young and dumb and insensitive towards their wives at times.
I am imagining a graph in my head that shows the degree to which you can put another individual on a pedastal to be inversely related to how well you know them.
Sister Hinckley also said, when asked what is was like to marry an apostle ( or something like that) that he wasn’t an apostle when she married him. :thumbup: I hate expectations and “should” as much as just about anything, except blatant abuse. I actually think unrealistic expectations are a mild but serious form of abuse. They are a serious issue when held by church leaders toward members, but they also are a serious issue when held by church members toward leaders. Some are critical, but, imo, those are the general principles (love, patience, meekness, faith, etc.) and not specific aspects that can and do vary among people trying to understand and live the principles.
Old-Timer wrote:I actually think unrealistic expectations are a mild but serious form of abuse. They are a serious issue when held by church leaders toward members, but they also are a serious issue when held by church members toward leaders. Some are critical, but, imo, those are the general principles (love, patience, meekness, faith, etc.) and not specific aspects that can and do vary among people trying to understand and live the principles.
Ouch! As someone who suffers from high expectations (of myself, and others). I’m not sure I can agree with it being labelled even a mild form of abuse — at least, not when those expectations don’t manifest themselves in ways that hurt others. I know mine don’t. They cause me, personally problems (such as withdrawal from situations, disappointment, and sometimes resentment) but I don’t criticize people for not meeting my expectations. The impact is inward.
Now, the person who holds high expectations and is constantly implying people are inferior due to their inability to meet expectations — damaging their self-esteem etcetera — that could be considered a form of abuse.
It’s very human to put people on a pedestal. Someone has a special talent or ability, embodies charity, has fame, has money, something that we aspire to or even covet. It’s such a natural thing that it’s almost impossible for us to divorce ourselves from holding people up. It’s not always a bad thing, maybe placing Jimmy Page on a pedestal inspires someone to learn the guitar. Maybe placing Mother Teresa on a pedestal motivates someone to be more charitable. When I think back to my role models from the past I notice something, I didn’t take the all or nothing approach. I could look up to rock stars for their ability, maybe dream of being rich, but I didn’t give them a pass on the lifestyle. Drug use was a big turn off, but I still looked up to them in their ability. So maybe for me it wasn’t idolizing the person so much as it was idolizing talents people had.
Sometimes we take the all or nothing approach with prophets. Either they were near perfect or they weren’t a prophet. We sometimes forget that we can enjoy their music but still look disapprovingly on their drug use.
Roy wrote:I sometimes wonder what it might be like to be married to a GA. I assume that everyone has unflattering features and quirks. I imagine a woman married to a man and coming to know the quirks and then having him receive a call that seems reserved for people that are especially holy. I wonder if his new calling would change the way she looked at him or if, to her, he would always be the same endearing quirky guy she married. Might this change the way she looks at GA’s in general?
I don’t know the guy but I hear that J. Golden Kimball was loved specifically because he was rough around the edges and wasn’t afraid to own it. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve done ourselves a disservice by creating this aura around leaders, that they are these near perfect men that have largely transcended the ills that hold the common man back… otherwise they’d be GAs themselves. I think we loved J. Golden Kimball because we could relate to him, he was one of us.
Old-Timer wrote:I hate expectations and “should” as much as just about anything, except blatant abuse. I actually think unrealistic expectations are a mild but serious form of abuse. They are a serious issue when held by church leaders toward members, but they also are a serious issue when held by church members toward leaders. Some are critical, but, imo, those are the general principles (love, patience, meekness, faith, etc.) and not specific aspects that can and do vary among people trying to understand and live the principles.
I’ve been experiencing some of this (well outside the context of church), from recent experience I’ve got to agree. SD, I could PM you the details about that experience.
nibbler wrote:I
I’ve been experiencing some of this (well outside the context of church), from recent experience I’ve got to agree. SD, I could PM you the details about that experience.
Would like to hear it!
Remember, I said unrealistic expectations, not high expectations. Sometimes, high expectations are unrealistic; sometime, they are not. Sometimes, they help ourselves and others; sometimes, they hurt ourselves and others. It is only when they become unrealistic and are IMPOSED that I believe they constitute abuse – and, sometimes, when applied through coercion, they constitute more than mild abuse.
Perhaps the word “abuse” is too inflamatory and loaded with baggage to be useful. Roy wrote:Taylor Swift is big in my home. The music is good and clean. But more than that – her behavior offstage makes her someone that DW and I are comfortable with as a role model for DD. Everything I have read about her points to her being a classy, giving, and thoughtful person. Does she behave that way because that is just her nature or might she feel boxed in by what her fans expect of her? What sort of behavior could it reasonably be said that she “owes” her fans? Interesting questions.
So yes in some small ways we have committed to Taylor Swift (or our perceptions of her). Suppose she did something that we did not approve of. Would we be justified in no longer buying her products? Badmouthing/protesting the behavior on facebook? Sending her a disapproving letter? On the one hand, we trusted her as a role model for our impressionable daughter. OTOH, when does buying her records give us voting rights in Taylor’s life?
In applying this to the Q15. I imagine that there could be major breaches that justify the ouster from the post (like extramarital affairs and drug use) but I also imagine that there could be a multitude of things that are just personal preference that Q15 members feel restricted on because of expectations. Perhaps one of the Q15 wants to grow a beard, or wear a blue shirt, or drink Mtn. Dew, or rewatch their favorite R-rated movie – but can’t because that would violate the collective expectations that are placed upon him.
I have invested much much more into Mormonism than I ever did buying records from Taylor Swift. At what point does my sacrifice entitle me to expect certain behaviors from the leadership. At what point does the collective membership of the church gain voting rights into the personal choices/preferences of the Q15?
Quote:Perhaps the word “abuse” is too inflamatory and loaded with baggage to be useful.
Yeah, you probably are right about that. Change it to “harmful to ourselves and others”.
🙂 Old-Timer wrote:Quote:Perhaps the word “abuse” is too inflamatory and loaded with baggage to be useful.
Yeah, you probably are right about that. Change it to “harmful to ourselves and others”.
🙂 Had interesting conversation today with one of my ex-assistants when I was HPGL. I called him by accident. He’s in the Bpric in my geographical Ward. He started complementing me on the things he learned from me when we served together. Notably, ask people to do things they are excited about, and
b)have low expectations.That was well before my commitment crisis that I must have said that to him. I was very surprised that this really good guy would remember that — and that I even said it back then. He even quoted the inspired source from which this nuggest came
…Saturday Night LIve.Where they said the secret to peace in life is low expectations. Because with low expectations, your spouse looks good, your job looks good, your car looks good, and most of all the church looks good 
The trick is reconciling the need for low expecations for inner peace, with the need for high expectations as leaders. Reconciling the two is a nightmare…
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