My Idaho at 120 BPM

Being Blue in a Red State

The ’tile setter’

I recently had the opportunity to tour a newly constructed ‘temple’ here in the valley. I figured it would be a great opportunity to view some great architecture and get a small glimpse at the extravagance that seems so important to this faith. Unfortunately things didn’t work out and the opportunity passed.

A good friend of mine who is a member of the church took the tour with his family and he shared some highlights with me. He told me a ‘story’ his brother-in-law had told him about the tile work in the temple’s fountain. The story goes like this….

The temple contractor was having a difficult time finding a skilled tile setter capable of doing the tile work for the fountain. The project was apparently very intricate and required a special craftsman to do the job. ‘Miraculously’ an older gentleman that happened to live nearby was interested in looking at the project. During the initial consultation the older gentleman was helped down a ladder into the fountain pool to review the work that needed to be done. The temple officials were a bit concerned about the physical ability of the tile setter to handle the access in and out of the fountain pool but despite the concern the gentleman was hired to do the job.

During the project the tile setter was able access the fountain with ease doing the work without any difficulty, but upon the final inspection of the completed work, the older gentleman needed help descending the ladder into the fountain pool.

I looked at my friend with bright eyes and said ‘are you suggesting’? ‘Are you suggesting that God was present during the tile setters work and gave him extra strength to do the work because he is a member of your church?’ The short answer was ‘yes’. The long answer was, well… long.

Now, I had just watched heartbreaking interviews the night before on PBS by survivors from the rural Texas church massacre that had taken place less than two weeks before, approximately the same time the tile work was being completed. The story of the mother laying on top of her three children trying to protect them from gun fire was heartbreaking and had me in tears.

Suggesting that the God was watching over the ’tile setter’ and completely ignoring the mother dying on top of her children because God favored their particular ‘faction’ of Christianity is another compelling reason to doubt the idea of God. What is equally concerning to me, is the indoctrination of these ideas into children before they have the capacity for critical thought and then send them out into the world to promote these ideas.