Code Green

Not long ago, I found myself sitting in a movie theater, watching the first of what is expected to be several blockbuster films of the summer of 2015. Chances are, you've seen it, too. I refer tonight to a flick titled The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Oddly, I found myself sympathizing especially with an unexpected member of the team: Bruce Banner, aka the Incredible Hulk. I say "oddly" because the Hulk is not necessarily my favorite Avenger, nor is he really the favorite of many others I associate with. (Maybe I need to get out more.) In a poignant scene, he finds himself talking alone with Natalia Alianovna Romanova, aka Black Widow.

I'm paraphrasing, but the gist of Banner's speech to her is that he is worried he cannot or will not have the kind of future he really wants. Because of his "condition," putting it lightly, he'll never marry, have children, or have any other semblance of a "normal" life that others enjoy and/or take for granted.

So, why do I sympathize with the Hulkster? Well, I belong to a mid-single adult ward—which I lovingly refer to here on Paco Nation as the Island of Misfit Toys, and sometimes as the Remedial Singles Ward. And I often feel like this very worry expressed by Banner—call it "Code Green," if you will—is the elephant in the room each week at church that nobody wants to talk about directly, and yet it is the very concern is that is very real to each and every person who attends and who longs for that same kind of future.

Perhaps this is why I find myself blogging about the issue so much. I sometimes feel like there is just not enough of a dialogue going on (that, or I'm not reading all of the right LDS-themed articles or blog posts—though I do follow as many as I can—on the matter), because each has his/her own insights and experiences on the matter. If you have a blog and I'm not already reading it, please share it with me. Follow me, and I'll follow you, and all that.

From a simplistic point-of-view, this "Code Green," so to speak, would all seem rather simple. Some basic tenets: "Marriage is ordained of God." To single Latter-day Saint adults, it is a commandment to seek out someone you can get along with for at least more than a few dates and then marry, be like Adam and Eve post-Garden of Eden, etc. Boom, problem solved, and commandment fulfilled.

Instead, it's just not that simple. Unlike all of the other commandments, it's the only one we cannot obey by ourselves, and that "free agency" thing gets in the way. Like Bruce Banner, we all worry to one degree or another about the future and what may or may not happen while simultaneously clinging to faith in things in which we can have faith. Collectively speaking, issues like the big, ugly, hairy monster of dating get in the way and complicate things even more. I feel we're collectively also terrible at communication, and personally I'm working to improve my own skills in any way I can. Big complications with that one. We worry about our own selves and battle problems of self-esteem and self-doubt and "I just am not cut out for this" and whether we really are capable of doing what we've been asked while still believing, somehow, that "the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them" (1 Nephi 3:7).

The whole process is exhausting. At times, it's lonesome, excruciating, and heartbreaking. It makes you feel like you get back, at most, a nickel for every dollar you invest in it. It puts you through the ringer and then back again spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Indeed, it's far more complicated than it looks. But if you start over by breaking it down to a simple Sunday, I think, you can also find moments of joy as you make the journey and attempt to conquer that inner Hulk. That was my simple goal today—while simultaneously making a conscious effort to push that image of the elephant in the room down to fifth or sixth on my Top 10 list of concerns for the day. Our three-hour block was wonderful. I conversed with several old as well as new-ish friends and made a couple of new acquaintances, to boot. The girl I took out on a date this past week even said "hello" and briefly conversed with me (which lately seems to be the exception and not the rule—but more on that topic another day) between meetings.

Baby steps.

When all is said and done, perhaps Hulk is not ready to smash just yet.