What Kind of Rolex Would Jesus Wear and the Case for Polygamy

Neighbors are interesting things. I believe there are two main types.

You have the a) “we really like you, until we ask you to cut down your tree because we are tired of the crap it drops in our yard like four times a year-oh you won’t, well you won’t like it when we sue your ass if a limb falls on our house but it's OK now because you bought lemonade from our kid,” neighbors.

and b) “sure we live ten feet away but since it’s the city and we see each other six or seven hundred times a week let’s not acknowledge each other because it would just add more complexity to our already stressful lives by taking time to engage in some meaningless dialog,” neighbors.

It is good to have a mix of both.

With the first type of neighbor, although having potential volatility, you share a value system that even if based only on socio-economics allows you to ask them to shovel your sidewalk while you are in the Keys for some made-up conference that’s sole purpose is to get you out of shoveling snow. The second type of neighbor allows you to develop theories about them since you only have gossipy anecdotal and observational data to reference. Both are highly unreliable data sets, which is particularly well suited to developing numerous theories about their lives, especially around holidays. “Just who is the strange flannel clad, farmer-looking man in the little 20-year-old pick-up truck with Wisconsin plates that looks like the wife of the couple you don’t talk to?”

Upon learning he is the brother of the wife of the couple you don’t talk to visiting from outside Madison where he grows organic beets you realize visual data may be more reliable than previously thought and the whole making things up about your neighbors thing is not nearly as fun as you had hoped. Until the sweet old man with what you thought was a Slavic but was really Austrian accent is taken away for war crimes. Then you start to wonder about the guy that wears the strange mask and blood crusted leather apron whose house reeks of death that’s always asking you to help him dig holes and carry bags of lime. I think he might be the bass player in Insane Clown Posse….or Mormon.

A friend of mine was a Mormon before moving to Paris. Well I’m not sure if he ceased to be a Mormon upon arriving in Paris but I believe it became less of a priority. He was telling me about visits from his family. They would arrive in Paris and spend several days with him touring the city. At some point he knew “the talk” was coming. His favorite instance of “the talk” was when he and a brother-in-law were at the Louvre, as they gazed upon the Mona Lisa the brother-in-law says to my friend, “It really is very beautiful......but isn’t something missing?” My buddy knew it was beginning, the lecture about god-shaped holes, self-absorption, a life devoid of purpose and meaning––wouldn’t his current rudderless ship of a life be better shared with Jesus Christ and living in Utah away from the godless and unwashed European masses.

He said it was just something you endured for a couple of hours one day between lunch and dinner. He didn't really mind and it was something the family was more or less required to do or their souls became part of the same at-risk population as his. He would nod his head a lot, be humble and talk about his personal relationship with God, perhaps one free of Jesus-shuttling wooden submarines, God’s personally inscribed tableware and sudden reversals of policy on the consumption of Coca-Cola. That, he said, was a huge mistake. He was then pummeled by the “there was only one way to have a relationship with God and the Latter Day Saints are it,” speech. The term "latter day" of course used to distinguish Mormon origins from the inferior former day saints. I suppose their argument being newer is better. Which, honestly, is a pretty good argument.

There is no need to rehash the whole my all loving god is better than your all loving god and I’ll kill you to prove it thing but I am always struck by fear and insecurity that surrounds the “worship my god, my way or else” mindset. Isn't the whole point of God is to instill faith which by definition should remove or at least substantially allay fear, and if nothing else certainly the fear that surrounds one’s faith or lack thereof when challenged by something that does not adhere to some specific dogma. Ritual, ceremony and community in the pursuit of good works is a wonderful thing but dear god man the distortion and manipulation, speaking broadly and historically, is so off-putting to the entire circus it is no wonder people would rather fuck, read the Times and go for a walk ending in a nice brunch with your wife’s rich friends that makes you feel inadequate on Sunday instead.

This is not even considering the financial ramifications. Most Sunday operators ask for a tithe or as I would say, “You want 10 percent of my pre-tax household income? You're fucking kidding right, that’s a Rolex, a year’s lease payments on a 3 series B’mer, two laptops, an Armani and Canali suit plus six months of my wife’s drinks with the girls budget.”

Fortunately I feel certain most supreme deities want me to have these things, in fact I often wonder what kind of Rolex Jesus would wear. In an effort to fulfill some unfinished comparative religious studies requirements I believe Allah to be a sportier god and would opt for a TagHeuer while Buddha in the less is more, time is irrelavent tradition would opt for an inexpensive watch, but one with a pedometer/calorie calculator for seeing just how long he really was "on the path," but clearly the calorie calculator would (ahem) be of very little use to him.

The Mormons did believe in polygamy, I suppose that’s why they were Latter Day Saints people, perhaps the Former Day Folks were not as accommodating with regard to having twelve wives, there does however seem to be such a substantial tradition of misogyny in religion I doubt that to be the case. The practice of polygamy was banned in the late 1800’s when Joseph Smith must have conferred with some latter latter day saints-as always going for the newer trendier thing that didn’t result in yet another exile as they were running out of west to move to.

My wife and I were thinking as we became enamored with the show Big Love, that maybe it is time for polygamy to make a come back. There are certain aspects that could be very sensible in contemporary society and as stigmas and the law go the gay marriage agenda is really opening the door for non-traditional thinking around the whole issue. Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a household on a single income in many parts of the country, to add a third spouse to share in the household and child-rearing responsibilities may prove to be not just a smart logistical maneuver but also an economic reality.

Polygamy in fact may be required to even survive in some insanely over-priced urban markets if a couple wants to have children. As such it may ultimately prove to be a requisite component of fulfilling the biological imperative. We are not proposing the addition of numerous spouses, just one or perhaps two in Geneva, Oslo or London. People could switch off occasionally in this arrangement, moving in and out of the work force to spend a year or so with the kids and going to Target a lot. It really is quite human and infinitely practical. So current economic realities become an evolutionary trigger once again trumping tradition. So marry the nanny in to the family (note: I make no assumptions regarding the gender of the additional spouse).