As fate would have it, I have known Joe Cannon for 30 years. Joe is the editor of the Deseret News. I met him just shortly after I joined the LDS Church in the Washington, D.C. area but before my wife, Sally, joined. He helped to teach her the Good Word every Wednesday night at 7:30 for nearly a year. In other words, he’s a good friend and I admire him greatly.
Just before Sally and I moved from DC to Provo to attend BYU, Joe pulled me aside and, in all seriousness, told me, “No matter what you see or hear out there in Utah, the Church is still true.”
At the time I was a bit offended. I thought I was headed to Zion – a place the Saints gathered to call home. A special place built on the faith, hope, and charity of decent people. A people organized with real intent and good deeds. A truly Christian place guided by the higher principles of life. And, so, for him to forewarn me that perhaps my idyllic view might be disappointing once I saw reality was confusing.
Of course, it didn’t take me long to realize what Joe was saying to me. The funny thing is that I still believe my perception of Utah is true. Only now I understand that life is as much about “what ought to be” as about “what is.”
Once I arrived in Utah I began to hear a common theme: Utah is the fraud capital of the world. Now that’s a pretty big claim. I thought, bigger than the politics of Washington, D.C.? Bigger than Wall Street? Bigger than the Soviet Union? Bigger than the fantasy world of Hollywood?
What’s more is that most of the fraud in Utah, I was told, seemed to come from Utah County – the most Mormon place on the face of the Earth.
I worked full-time while I went to school full-time and my first job in Provo was doing some research and writing for a company that taught real estate seminars. All of my colleagues there were Latter-day Saints. That was my first glimpse of the Utah that Joe was talking about.
When he warned me, “No matter what you see or hear out there in Utah, the Church is still true,” he wasn’t sharing the obvious with me – that the world is full of imperfect people. He was telling me that a lot of imperfect people would use the façade of goodness and character and principles to get gain. He was telling me that imperfect people would use God, mom, and apple pie to persuade me to give them money, or to give them my good name, or to give them my vote.
In other words, he wasn’t telling me that I couldn’t trust Utah Mormons. He was telling me that the high standards set by Utah Mormons were a seedbed for imperfect people to say one thing and to do another thing. He was advising me to put my trust in God, not in the arm of flesh.
From my perch at Sutherland, I have a pretty good view of what Joe had described. In fact, I might have the best seat in the house when it comes to seeing faith, family, and freedom play out on the big stages of politics, religion, and business.
I am confronted daily with people who try to sell me snake oil – or some miraculous fruit juice – in the name of whatever I hold most dear. Republicans try to sell me their brand of partisanship in the name of conservatism. Democrats try to sell me their brand of partisanship in the names of justice and equality. I’m pushed to buy greed in the name of capitalism. And I’m pushed to buy physical beauty in the name of godliness.
But is this sort of deception really that much different than anywhere else on the planet? I don’t think so. What makes it feel different is that Utahns – especially the Latter-day Saint population – is full of people like me: people who struggle to live a better way. High standards always create bigger failures than low standards. And it doesn’t help that high standards are usually surrounded by low critics who can’t wait for someone else to fail, or to lose faith, or to give up hope, or to abandon charity. Misery loves company.
Utah is not the fraud capital of the world. It’s a place where the hope of good and the reality of evil collide. The really progressive people among us aren’t the cynics who dwell on the evil they see daily; the really progressive people among us are those who, like my old friend, recognize that the world is an imperfect place full of imperfect people and, yet, still choose to live lives of principle, honesty, and integrity.
I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.
