Singles Wards

I can't remember when I last visited a singles ward. All I know is that it's been a long, long time. I was last IN a singles ward back in the spring of 1991. That's 16 years that I've been away from singles wards.

Since I last was a member of a singles ward, I've gone to married student wards, family wards that greatly resembled married student wards, a highly-transient family ward, and most recently, a more stable family ward. Each ward has had its own unique blend of challenges and strengths.

A week ago Sunday, I visited a singles ward in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Maybe my memories have faded. Maybe I was too young and self-absorbed to notice some things. Maybe my current view is tainted by my own life experience. Maybe I've just been married for too long. But this singles ward wasn't like the singles wards I remember. Actually, the movie is a lot LOT more funny to me now that I've recently visited a singles ward.

I'd forgotten how quiet meetings can be. During the time that the sacrament was administered, I sneezed, and I felt like a bomb had gone off. I had interrupted a nearly perfect silence. The noises from outside the building were louder than any noises in that chapel. It was an almost eerie silence. It was absolutely TOO quiet. I started to wish for the sound of a toddler crying or some pre-teens giggling and poking each other.

Yet immediately following the meeting and again after the block of meetings, the noise of the socializing was relatively deafening. Silent hour turned WAY too quickly into social hour. I'm probably exaggerating, but the juxtaposition of the solemn silence and the explosion of highly-charged socialization made it really seem to be deafeningly noisy.

Sad but true: The underlying level of sexual tension in this singles ward was painful. That's probably a good thing, because it probably means that, more often than not, the people in the ward are living the values they SHOULD be living. It just gave me a very different, kind of strange feeling as I watched the ward members interact with each other.

Even the people that stood in front of the congregation to share their feelings--a regular monthly occurrence in LDS wards--seemed to feel pressure to say just the right things in just the right way so that they would appear to be that perfect partner; marriage material.

It's a good thing that in Sunday School, we didn't quite get to the scripture in Ephesians 5:25 - "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;" I wonder where that conversation might have gone. *crickets*

Interestingly enough, I ended up sitting in front of Laylabean's sister during the first meeting. How crazy is that? I just happen to go to church in a singles ward in Chevy Chase, Maryland and I just happen to sit in front of a very good friend's sister? That IS crazy!