I See... Singing in Congress

When the Savior visited his people in Ancient America, he noted that when he ministered unto children, he “did loose their tongues." As a result of this ministration, the children spoke “great and marvelous things”. (Third Nephi 26:14) I'm convinced they also said cute and funny things too.

I’m convinced that if an empirical study was done on the origins of LDS humor, we would find that most of it could have its lineage traced back to something a child accidentally said in church. The ward Primary program for Sacrament meeting is a great place to encounter young children with loose tongues speaking great and marvelous things. Some of what they say is just plain funny; some is both funny and great and marvelous. This happened last week in our ward.

A sincere senior primary young gentleman at the podium was earnestly narrating a portion of the Primary sacrament meeting program. Reading from a prepared script, he was supposed to say, “we invite the congregation to join us in singing “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet.” There was only one word, however, that was too long for his young tongue to manipulate, so his inspired mind defaulted to the next closest word he knew, and it came out “The Congress will now join us in singing “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet.”

Like a stray lit match cast unintentionally on a pile of stinky gas rags, holy subdued chuckles quickly exploded across a head-bobbing congregation. As we started singing “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet,” I saw many members struggling between “we thank thee for sending us the gospel” and “to lighten our minds with its rays” to hold back bursts of laughter. Polite mothers reverently put their hands over their mouths to hide uncontrollable smiles of delight.

Then the Mormon Third Eye, as it often does in the most inopportune times, pondered on the significance of this sleight of mouth. Maybe the young child hadn’t made a mistake after all. What if he really was pleading for world peace by asking members of Congress of the United States of America to turn their political swords into plowshares via an inspired hymn?

Is it even possible for the human mind to extrapolate what the intended consequences would be of members of Congress standing together singing about the blessings of following a living prophet like they meant it? With a troubled economy threatening to destroy so many families, and the specter of terrorism threatening to destroy so many freedoms, certainly “dark clouds of trouble hang o’er us and threaten our peace to destroy.” How much more inspired governance would come out of a Congress full of Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, holding hands and swaying rhythmically to the strains of “We doubt not the Lord nor his goodness, we’ve proved him in days that are past?”