The 19 June show was a great success. You know, on the surface I was a bit bummed out that we didn’t have 200 people in that room, but after a bit of surveying, I found out that my show pulled the same kinds of numbers that much more established acts have been pulling this month. It’s June, and everyone is out playing in the hills and the lakes. Who can blame them? June in Utah is Earthly perfection.
This show has been a fantastically fun ball of clay for me to play with. I decided to drop the jokey bullshit and just get a little more real with you during my opening monologue in June. Here’s what I had to say:
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I believe that people are more similar then they are different. I believe there’s great power for the whole human race in tearing down the walls that separate us all. I also believe that story telling is one of the most powerful tools for accomplishing the work of tearing down walls and building bridges.
Keep up the good work, and promise me one thing, and this is a very serious matter which I wanted to discuss with you while we were together in Logan, but didn’t get a chance. I seem to be more eloquent on paper, anyway, so promise me this: If you have gained nothing else in the time we’ve spent together so far, take with you the feeling that no matter how freaky or grungy or scary a person looks, no matter what moral decisions a particular person has made, no matter a person’s preference sexually nor a person’s apparent anger, each human being has a story to tell, and each story holds something to be gained – a knowledge, a warm feeling in your heart, even a genuine friendship – and each storyteller feels that his or her story is the most important thing in the world. Respect each and every storyteller you encounter as they respect the stories you tell, yourself.
Working in the Temple has been one of the most rewarding things I have done in my life so far. It has taught me that you cannot judge people by the way they look, or by the way that they dress. They are all children of our father in heaven, and everyone of them have had different experiences (both good and bad) that has brought them to where they are when you meet them. You can learn something from everyone of them, if you will take the time to listen to them and get to know them.
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which,if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilites, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – These are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” – C.S Lewis
