Potpie on Mormonism

A few weeks ago, I talked about my visit to C.'s shower in Chicago. While I was there, I met C.'s neighbor, Potpie. It's not his real name, but that's what we decided to call him after C.'s husband found him face-down in one at one in the morning the night I arrived.

We were all sitting around in the driveway on Saturday night, drinking wine and eating pizza, when Potpie said he was raised Mormon. Not knowing too much about Mormonism myself, I questioned him about the tenets of his religion. He said he didn't really follow too much of it anymore, but he liked parts of it. The conversation went something like this:

Me: So do you really get your own planet when you die?
Potpie: That would be a really bad generalization for my beliefs.
Me: That's what the ex-Mormon counselor at my Lutheran bible camp said.
Potpie: Well, I like parts of Mormonism, and there are parts I found hard to follow.

We all kind of agreed with that. Silence followed, broken occassionally by the sound of someone slurping pizza sauce.

Potpie: I think it would be easier if religion was like Panera. You pick two.
Me: Two what?
Potpie: Two commandments.

So then we thought. What are the commandments? Don't: Lie. Cheat. Steal. Kill. Covet cows. Covet wives. Worship Idols. Do: Keep Sabbath holy. Golden Rule. Respect Parents. That's the ten, right?

S: Don't kill. I can keep that one.

Silence followed, broken occassionally by the sound of someone belching up pizza. We thought and we thought. Not one of the ten of us could think of a commandment we regularly keep. Really, in our heart of hearts keep. Because who hasn't worshipped the almighty dollar or coveted their neighbor's cow at least once in their lives?

We continued to drink late into the night - what else could we do? Realizing you're human can take a lot out of you.