The Birth of Tragedy

Hugo Olaiz
2011 Dialogue : A Journal of Mormon Thought  
For Neal Chandler, il miglior fabbro "Is Mormonism still part of your Weltanschauung?" Aunt Doris asks me every time she sees me. She knows that at 2:15 on Sunday afternoons I'm blessing the sacrament like any other Mormon priest, even though I can be found Sunday mornings at St. James Episcopal helping administer the chalice-"the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in life everlasting"-and sometimes I even help lay out the cups and saucers for coffee hour. When I drive from St. James to
more » ... ramento Second Ward, it's like reversing the wedding at Cana-the wine becomes water, the priestly robes turn into dark suits, and the emaciated body of Christ, which at St. James is a wafer, miraculously rises to the texture of Wonder Bread. "That's the way our parents brought us up," I tell Aunt Doris for the millionth time. Dad is Mormon and Mom is Episcopalian, so my brother Steve and I were born Mormon-Episcopalians. Five years ago, Steve decided he wanted to be only a Mormon, which Mom and Dad said was fine; but after his mission, he moved in with his boyfriend Ramón, and now he says he's neither. Aunt Doris forgives me for attending Sacramento Second because she knows that I attend Saturday rehearsals at the McHenry with the same devotion. The McHenry was built when Sacramento was a boom town and a certain Mrs. McHenry (AKA the Merry Widow) couldn't think of a better way to immortalize her husband than by building a theater in his memory. Now the city of Sacramento owns the building and sponsors all McHenry Company productions. As the artistic director, Aunt Doris insists that we all call it an "amateur company" rather than community theater, and once she sued a reporter from the Sacramento Bee who described the company as "a troupe of loonies and bohemians
doi:10.5406/dialjmormthou.44.2.0157 fatcat:f4b3v5uqavfpbcd7ul3a2nv7ue