Fake It Til You Make It, Anatomy Style

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Recently, I started a new job teaching anatomy and physiology.  I have a pretty comprehensive background in developmental biology – I can lecture for hours on the development of the heart, brain, and muscular system.  I can talk about the structure of the cell and how structure lends itself to function.  I can trace the genetic pathways and give the structure of many of the mature organs. 

But the anatomy of the adult human body?  I’m a little lost.  I teach within the context of health science and I simply don’t have the medical background required.  And so I find myself falling back on an old Mormon adage: “fake it til you make it.” 

        In the Mormon context, “fake it til you make it” means claiming that you believe in Mormonism until you find yourself actually believing in Mormonism.  Every month we would have testimony meetings, where members were encouraged to share their belief in the truth of the Gospel.  We were told that the best way to gain a testimony is by bearing it.  And so every month we would be surrounded by members who all claimed to believe, who all claimed to know.  As to who was an actual believer, I am not sure. 

         Now, in my new job, faking it until you make it means not admitting that I’ve never dissected a cat before.  It means comforting students who are nervous about the up-coming cat dissections, telling them that it isn’t as scary as it sounds, when in reality I’ve never dissected a cat before.  I have dissected other things – I am a master of dissecting embryonic and new-born mice – but never a full-grown cat.  I can only hope that my constant reassurance of students hold true for me as well. 

          Last week I lectured on skin conditions.  Most of the knowledge I presented I had learned just a few days before.  For the lecture, I had to draw on my background in biology and I also had to research a lot of conditions beforehand.  Even so, there were a lot of questions I could not answer.

          The difference?  When I didn’t know something, I said so.  I didn’t try to lie and I didn’t pretend to knowledge that I didn’t have.  I hope that the students understand that their teacher isn’t all-knowing.  If they can’t or won’t understand this fact, that is none of my concern.  For me, I am simply trying to be the best teacher that I can, within the context of my limitations.  

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Book Review: False Prophet

Satire (noun): the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose or criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Sometimes the truth can be strangest of all.  In her book "False Prophet," author Donna Banta once again draws on her skills as a satirist to expose the weird, sometimes odd, almost always heart-breaking realities of being a Mormon.  In “The Girls From Fourth Ward,” the story was about how far Mormon girls would go to get into BYU.  In “False Prophet,” the story centers around Ryan and the very sweet but over-worked Carrie Zimmerman, who finds herself repeating the refrain “I love being a Mormon,” in order to cope with the exhausting and mind-numbing realities of being the bishop’s wife.           

          “False Prophet,” picks up again with Lieutenant Matt Ryan, who is burnt-out and disillusioned from his last run-in with the Mormons, who had foiled his investigation at every turn, ultimately leaving the murder unsolved.  When he discovers another murdered man clutching a blue and gold embossed Book of Mormon, his reaction is, quite simply, to close his eyes and whisper “Jesus Christ.  Not again.”

 This time, the murder victim, Brother Sid Dooley, was a lonely widower who embraced Mormonism with zeal after the death of his wife and only daughter.  Brother Dooley is the eccentric character that is found in every Mormon congregation (ward), a lonely man who walks around claiming to see angels and talk with God.  When he turns up murdered, having ranted about a false prophet shortly before his death, the only suspect that the police can come up with is Bishop Zimmerman, who had spoken to Dooley shortly before his death and was the one to discover his body. 

The story is a real who-dunit, an adventure that keeps you guessing at every turn.  There is the familiar cast of characters from the first book, with an increased focus on the sweet but exhausted bishop’s wife Carrie Zimmerman, who is nine months pregnant and stressed about balancing her family’s meager finances with her ever-increasing frustration over her narrowing life.  “I love being a Mormon,” she whispers at every turn, while the realities of having a husband falsely arrested for murder pushes her to make choices that aren’t quite Mormon in nature. 

                

Scars

If you look at my face, I have a faint scar that crosses my forehead.  It doesn’t look like much, just a simple scar that goes across the right side of my forehead and then disappears along my brow-line.  The only hint as to the severity of the scar happens when I raise my eyebrows; my right eyebrow just doesn’t lift as high as the left one.

I got the scar on my forehead in an accident.  I was hit by an elderly driver while walking to work.  My head shattered the windshield and as a result, the flap of skin above my right eye was peeled down to the bone.  Thanks to the work of an excellent plastic surgeon, this injury looks like nothing more than an innocuous scar, one that merits only a passing notice, if at all.  For me, the only memory of this injury is the scar and the perpetual numbness of that area. 

I am twenty-eight years old.  I have been out of the Mormon Church for twelve years.  Most of the time, when I am going about my daily life, I don’t really think about the past much.  Time is the ultimate healer and for me, it has healed a lot.  Growing up Mormon is a hard burden to bear – I spent my childhood and teenage years feeling insufficient and fearing my doubts.  The process of leaving Mormonism, given the misconceptions surrounding people who leave, is also a hard burden to bear.  The experience has left its own kind of scar, one that is not visible.

I could get surgery to fix the scar on my forehead.  There isn’t much that can be done about the nerve damage but I could have the scar lightened, even removed.  But every time I think about the options, I find myself hesitating.  The truth is, scars are often a reminder of what we have survived.  I survived getting hit by a car.  I survived Mormonism.  And so I will wear these marks as a reminder of what I have survived.