Our Living Conditions, Part 3

So when I was a kid, my father explained to me a little bit about the United Order.

This can be a bit overwhelming to a nine year-old. In the ultimate sacrifice, I imagined consecrating all of my belongings to God, and men from the Church coming into my room to cart away all of my most cherished possessions. I pictured them boxing up the Conan and Tarzan books that I loved so much and taking them away to serve the greater good. What a sacrifice that would be. God would then know that I was willing to give up everything in His honor.

Even though I may not have understood everything my father taught me, the teachings did make an impression on me. Growing up as a teen in the decadent 80s, there was a lot of pressure to conform. Wearing Polo, Reeboks, designer clothing was an imperative. I reacted by going as “non-conformist” as possible. I used my lunch money to buy used clothes from the thrift store – the uglier, the better. Loud paisley shirts from the 60s, mustard yellows, puke greens. I spiked my hair with egg whites and wore guyliner. Why? Because, in my overdeveloped sense of idealism, everything that bucked the system was good. (Ironically I became well-known in my high school as someone with a high fashion sense.)

More importantly, I became aware of social issues. I read many of the underground punk/ anarchist “’zines” that preached dropping out of society by scavenging – eating only cast-away food and wearing only used clothes. I decided on my own to read “The Communist Manifesto”, and the idea of redistributing the wealth to the masses resembled what I had been taught about the United Order. So, there at the tail end of the Cold War, I decided that I was a communist.

When I was old enough to register to vote, our high school set up a booth where students could register. The lady behind the desk asked me if I would register as Republican or Democrat. Can you imagine the shock on her face when I said, “Neither. I want to register with the Communist Party.”

Sure, it was mostly the shock factor.

I remember my junior year, being interviewed by a panel from the American Legion for entry into Boy’s State. I cringe now (and laugh a little) as I remember telling these old veterans of the Korean War that I was a communist. Needless to say, I was NOT selected for Boy’s State. When I was a student in Belgium, I met many communists. One of them sat across from me and blew cigarette smoke in my face.

"You know, I really hate your country,” he said (in his thick French accent). Then I started to speak of the proletariat, dialectical materialism and the “bourgeoisie”, and he wound up later telling me, “You know, you are the first nice American I have ever met!”

This phase was short-lived. I quickly rejected Marxism, but this whole experience left me with a great distrust of wealth and the people who have it. I remember arguing in college with a friend, insisting that people only became rich by somehow enslaving others. (Sorry about that, Poppy.) I saw no purpose or meaning in spending my time in the pursuit of money. As long as I had “sufficient for my needs”, that was all I needed. Having anything else would be sinful, and, deep down, I felt that I didn’t deserve anything else. I was already placing myself in a poverty mindset that I even now am trying to break.

In 1988, while I was away studying in Belgium, I received news that my father had been called into the stake president’s office to be reprimanded for his belief in plural marriage. Within a year, he was excommunicated, and a year later, so was I, along with the rest of my family. My father found a book on United Order, and, in it, there was a special baptismal ceremony that was used for bringing people into the order. Since we were alone in Arizona and knew no one else who believed the same as we did, my father decided to initiate the United Order with his own family.

So we set up a portable swimming pool in the back yard, and early one summer morning in 1990, my father baptized us all into a United Order. For me, a college student working my way through school at an auto parts store, it meant that I gave half of my money to my dad and kept the other half for my education and entertainment. It didn’t feel any different than paying rent and helping with the bills.

The whole family eventually moved to Utah and joined the Allred Group (AUB), where I soon married Martha. There were several quasi-United Orders set up. One in Southern Utah, and one in Santaquin. My father set out immediately to try and join one of them. But one of the members of the Council, Bill Baird, cautioned my father against this, pointing out that many of these orders already had built in problems.

“You have everything you need within your own family to live the United Order,” Bill told my father.

So for the next ten years, I practiced living the United Order with my father and my brothers. There were some good experiences and some bad ones. I will tell you in the next installment what I learned.