{Tried to Post on Mormon Matters but no one approved this post}
Are you a FFM? We’ve all heard of the term TBM {True Blue Mormon, True Believing Mormon, Totally Biotical Mormon – Maybe that last one I just made up}. So, what is a Full Fledged Mormon?
I have often marveled at how we, as Mormons, skip over the key points of our religion and focus on the doom and gloom and catastrophe of it all. Am I speaking of ex-communication? Am I talking about your Bishop cutting up your Temple Recommend like a rogue waiter slicing through a revoked credit card? {I’ve done that in front of customers before. It’s kinda neat to see the expression on their faces – The cutting of the credit card thing and not cutting up a customer’s recommend – Sheesh! What were you thinking?} Am I talking about the adversary being unleashed after one thousand years of bondage?
I say no to all of these. What I am talking about is the Word of Wisdom – or WoW as I like to call it.
The other day at work we were discussing whether someone’s Birthday cake had actual Rum in it. The Birthday person is Mormon and in the conversation said Mormon proclaimed: “One cap full of Nyquil will knock me unconscious.”
‘Hum,’ I thought to myself, ‘Isn’t it against the WoW to take Nyquil?’ I looked it up, and WOW, it is against the WoW to take Nyquil. (89:7 . . .strong drinks are not for the belly . . )
Hum! That’s odd, right. Well, no it isn’t odd. There are other deviations from WoW, like the whole eating meat only in winter or times of famine. I’ve seen some really famished High Priests at a 4th of July BBQ. {but haven’t we all?}
The other interpretation would be to use ‘Flesh of the Beasts’{hum, sounds like a Goth band} sparingly throughout the year. I don’t see that one happening either. Again, I’ve never been to a Mormon BBQ where there was a sparse abundance of animal flesh.
So, when is it acceptable to break the rules of WoW? [Remember I am not talking about World of Warcraft, here so don't ever think about it. You know how YOU are!]
Are we FFMs if we are taking some WoW mandates lightly and others more serious? Does this make us as much in transgression as the wino passed out in the gutter? Are we in greater trespass of the WoW with the covenants we vowed to uphold?
Well, maybe? But I guess after two hamburgers and three hot-dogs we don’t do the uncouth thing and pass out. We do the classy thing and take a cat-nap on the couch.
Jamie Trwth
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