Weddings make me miss my dad.

 

Isn't that odd? It isn't just weddings in my family either (all of my Allman family events make me miss my dad), but every single wedding I've gone to since he died.

 

One of my Sorensen-side nieces was married last week, someone I'm not sure my dad ever even met, but as her dad walked her up the aisle, I thought about my wedding, and how my dad made me so late I had to rush through everything. I wondered how he felt, not seeing his daughter's wedding ceremony (I was married in the temple but he wasn't interested in the church at the time). This thought made my tears spill over, but luckily no one cares if you cry at a wedding. They just didn't know it wasn't over the bride.

 

I've been thinking about my dad quite a bit since then.

 

Back in September, I went to a funeral in Springville, the town where I grew up. It was for my cousin's husband, and since that cousin bought my grandma's house when she died—the house my dad grew up in—the funeral was held in the church my dad went to as a child.

Well, the church he was assigned to. I don't think he went there very often. In fact, just to confirm how I imagined that aspect of my dad's childhood, I asked my uncle if they ever actually went to church as kids. "Well, only a few times," he said. "In this very church, in fact."

 

The church's chapel has something I have never seen before: a stained glass window. Well, I mean: Of course I've seen a stained glass window. I see one almost every day, as my library has one of the county's most famous. But LDS churches are very utilitarian. There are meeting rooms and a gym and a chapel, a place for the primary to gather, and the youth, and the adults, but generally there isn't a lot of art. There is some on the walls in the foyer, but none in the chapel, where we hold our most important Sunday meeting, the sacrament meeting.

 

So when I walked into the chapel of my dad's childhood church, I was astounded. Stained glass windows!

 

I've noticed this lack of art before, but I've never really, really thought about this question: Why isn't there any art in our church buildings?

 

Why are our buildings so uniformly constructed, and so plain?

 

I've even researched a little bit, trying to find an answer, but I haven't gotten far. (I confess to wanting to find an essay or a talk on the philosophy of Mormon church buildings.) I imagine that it has something to do with humility, and with the desire to have our thoughts of worship be focused on Christ and the Spirit rather than be influenced by images. It probably also has something to do with our temples, which are much more awe-inspiring and beautiful than our churches.

 

I understand that, mostly. The desire to be influenced simply by the Spirit.

 

But I also confess that it makes me a little bit sad, this realization of our austerity. It makes me think of Anne Shirley, sitting in the purple light cast through the stained glass window. It makes me wonder if a church full of light would've been more appealing to my young self. Or if beauty instead of utility would appeal to me more even now.

 

It makes me wonder what my dad thought, on those few times he went to church and sat in the chapel with the stained glass windows. They weren't, obviously, enough to make him want to keep going. At least, not then. But near the end of his life, he started going to church, and reading the scriptures, and developing his testimony. It's probably a long stretch. But maybe he remembered—the images from the Book of Mormon on the windows of his childhood church, and that feeling that beautiful art gives you. The way an image made in paint, or pencil, or glass helps connect you to story, and through that connection the story becomes more vibrant.

 

And oh, how I wish. I wish we could sit down at a table somewhere together. Maybe in his backyard. Maybe in my sister's. We'd have some cake and I'd ask him what he remembered about going to church as a kid. What he thought about the stained glass windows. What he thinks, now, about our church buildings. If he understand the lack of art, or feels like I do...wishes that every church could be unique, with art and color and soaring ceilings, with oddly-shaped rooms and small, hidden corners. Maybe we'd also talk about church in general. I'd tell him a story about something funny at that wedding last week, and maybe even ask him what he felt on the day I got married. And then about what we were reading, and the hike I took last week. Also, if he likes the cake and would like some more, and maybe a drink, too.

 

I wish I could have that impossible conversation.

 

I miss you, Dad.