Q: How many Mormons does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Three. One the screw in the light bulb and two to bring the refreshments.
Speaking as a Mormon, I know firsthand food is an integral part of Mormon culture - maybe it’s due to a more face value interpretation of John 21, when the Saviour turned to Peter thrice and instructed him to feed His sheep.
Latter-Day Saints literally feed one another with tangible, physical, calorically dense food at every opportunity, be it refreshments for church meetings, corncob roasts, picnics, pancake breakfasts and ice cream socials. It’s all incredibly important to the fabric of Mormon culture because it brings people closer and builds group cohesiveness. It gives family members and church members a chance to socialize, and as studies have shown, a family who eats dinner together are more likely to raise academically and socially successful, drug-free children. The risk of obesity and depression also drop significantly.
There’s just something supernal about the sharing of food and conversation.
For some, who are on the economic margins, the food shared provides life-saving nourishment. These numbers of needy are sure to grow in this ever-darkening economic climate. And members have been warned for decades by church leaders to build a food storage for bad times ahead, and many families who have followed that admonition can now sustain themselves for months, and in some cases years on their own food stores.
Now let’s consider this in the grander context of the church organization and it’s global expansion, and when we consider all the economic disasters which are unfolding before our eyes. In the news today we’re hearing about skyrocketing food prices, crumbling banks, depleting natural resources like oil and drinkable water, the rapid degradation of the environment and global warming to name a few. And as the disasters ratchet up more and more, people will realise their designer toilet brushes, fancy cell phones and luxury cars mean nothing and are worth nothing when they have no food to eat, no drinkable water, and no association with community because they were too busy trying to shoehorn that digital high definition plasma TV on to their MasterCard. At that point it will be every man for himself.
It’ll be at this critical juncture when these people realise the book club or bowling team they were member of every Thursday night wasn’t enough.
I know an elderly gentleman who is eighty seven years old, a long time member of the Mormon church, and someone who experienced first hand the great depression. I asked him for one lesson that we (as a general population) can carry over from the first depression to the next inevitable depression which lurks around the corner. His reply, steeped in wisdom, was “growing one’s own food and having a food storage - enough to live from and a surplus to barter with”. Because food and water will be the next currency.
When food becomes the new currency, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will increase in numbers and prominence as people are humbled and long for basic life sustaining sustenance, and for a sense of sharing and community that could never be bought in the marketplace.
