Neylan Mcbaine

PERSONAL VOICES Neylan McBaine A Miracle in Manhattan InJune2004,Ifoundmyself,lateonaSaturdaynight,climbingunder- neath the dressing room doors of the Manhattan New York Temple. Au- dio/visual equipment for the next morning’s temple dedication blocked most of the dressing room doors, but my goal was to reach every locker in both the men’s and women’s dressing rooms. Each key needed to be la- beled with the corresponding locker’s number, and then a spare key had to be placed in the temple’s facilities closet. Aside from an unusually private glimpse into the after-hours life of a temple, I also had a remarkable opportunity to serve. Who would have thought that labeling locker keys could bring the level of satisfaction and joy that it did for me that night? I felt as if I had done nothing in my life as productive as labeling keys. But most remarkable of all is the fact that there is a temple in Manhattan at all. A brief summary of the Church in Manhattan testifies to something amazing: There are currently 42,000 members of the Church in the New York area, there are six separate meetinghouses within Manhattan alone, and most of that growth has occurred within the past 20 years. At the dedicatory services for the temple and at the fireside the night before, the temple was called “a miracle” by President Hinckley and others many times. I like to think I played a small part in that miracle, which consisted of the fact that, in a large, transient city, there is a committed, faithful 149 150 DIALOGUE:AJOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, VOL. 40, NO. 4 community of Saints strong enough to merit a House of the Lord. After all, I was born and raised three blocks from the building that now houses the temple, on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan, across the street from Lincoln Center where my mother sang for the Metropolitan Opera. For twenty-one years, I walked to church—to the chapel of the Manhattan wards—walking up Broadway on quiet Sunday mornings while the impos- ing cultural temples of the Metropolitan Opera House, the New York State Theater, and Avery Fisher Hall lay dormant after lively Saturday night performances. I was blessed as a baby in that building and baptized in that building, and I was taught the gospel in that building. During my years in Young Women, I helped set up bake sales on the sidewalk outside, peddling banana bread and chocolate chip cookies to visitors at the Mu- seum of Arts and Crafts next door in an effort to raise money for girls’ camp. I played the part of a young shepherdess in Amahl and the Night Visi- tors, which we performed in that building with professional costumes and sets on loan from the neighboring theaters. As a young pianist studying at Juilliard, I thrilled to play the concert grand Steinway piano in the building’s chapel. While I was in high school, my walk to the building for early morning seminary happened before dawn, when “the city that never sleeps” was, in fact, asleep, the New York Times being thrown to drowsy shopkeepers who were the first to rise. I believe in the sudden, stark miracles that shock us into believing, like most of the miracles Christ performed during his life of healing the sick and raising the dead. But closer to my experience are the miracles that require hindsight to see their magic. As a child and youth, I didn’t think—nor did any of us think—we were part of anything miraculous. I don’t think I realized how different my church experience was from other young Latter-day Saints living in less urban environments. I went to Pri- mary, gave talks in church, attended girls’ camp. Other young Latter-day Saints were doing those things. But now as I look back on those years and that place from the vantage point of the temple dedication, it’s clear that a miracle was in fact occurring as I was busy working on my Personal Prog- ress award and attending seminary. The kingdom of the Lord was being built up all around me, growing the numbers of members and the strength of our faith as the years went by. Whatever small role I might have played in this miracle, it didn’t need me to succeed. But I needed it. While the kingdom grew up around me, it also grew up within me, a direct result, I believe, of the time and McBaine: Growing Up Mormon in New York 151 place in which I was living. Yes, New York gave me my testimony. Or, more accurately, the city acted as a sacred conduit in which I could confront feelings and have experiences that led me to Christ. A City of Contrasts New York City might not seem like the ideal place for a young woman to develop a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many people I’ve met since growing up there seem curious about how I remained faithful in the midst of such a Babylon. I suppose the loud city streets and con- crete jungle seem contradictory to the stereotypical vision of suburban bliss where the Spirit thrives in backyards of large family homes. But when I examine my childhood and try to determine what elements of my experiences helped form my testimony of the gospel, the fact that I grew up in New York City is high on the list of positive contributors. For me, it was because I lived in one of the largest cities in the world that my testimony grew strong. My testimony grew out of contrasts, out of the black-and-white distinctions that are so prevalent and obvious in a place like New York. A friend of mine gained her testimony after September 11, 2001, when she reasoned that the evil demonstrated on that day had to be counterbal- anced with an equal but opposite force for good. That reasoning caused her to investigate and later join the Church. Similarly, I witnessed oppos- ing forces at work in my urban surroundings and had to choose which side I wanted to be on. My conversion didn’t happen overnight as the result of some catastrophic event, like my friend’s. Rather, my testimony unfolded over years as I observed the choices made by the variety of people around me. Daily life offered people of every political leaning, wealthy people and poor people, righteous people, cruel people, educated and uneducated, successful and unsuccessful. I witnessed some of the finest professionals in their fields, attracted to New York because of the professional opportu- nities. I saw what choices and sacrifices they had to make to get where they were. I saw women’s purses snatched on the street, but I also saw kind strangers offer warm food to the homeless. I saw into the lives of wealthy Park Avenue socialites and discovered they had no greater claim on happi- ness than the rest of us. I joined the sister missionaries as they taught sin- gle-parent, African American families in Harlem who had humility and faith to be envied by every white, middle-class Utahn. We were all crammed together in an intense and geographically 152 DIALOGUE:AJOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, VOL. 40, NO. 4 constrained community. Distinctions and variety among Heavenly Fa- ther’s vast array of children forced me to constantly ask myself, Who do I want to be? Whose choices do I want to emulate? I had to be deliberate in my choices; too many contrasting forces were swirling around for me not to be. One bitter winter night when I was about ten years old, my mom and I rushed home along the sidewalk, bundled in our wool coats and shielding ourselves from an icy wind. Peeking through our scarves, we glimpsed a homeless woman, crouched against a wall, her possessions held close to her but her hand reached out to passersby. In the 1980s, the homeless population was a serious problem in New York City; but we rarely gave money, preferring instead to pay our tithing and volunteer at soup kitchens. But this particular woman who pled for help as we hurried by pitifully cried out that she was pregnant. We were only a block from our apartment building and so my mom and I hurried home and scrambled to find an old blanket or sweater that we could give her. I donated an old pink ballet bag that was big enough to carry our offerings back across the street. We returned with our contributions which the woman quickly wrapped around herself, but we were surprised to hear her ask us if we had any cash instead. We shook our heads and ran home, warmed by the goodness of our deed. About six months later, in the summer, we encountered the same homeless woman in the same spot—and she was still “pregnant”! Were we sorry that we had gone out of our way to help a deceitful vagabond, who may not have needed our help as much as she said she did? Should the experience have made us skeptical of those in need? Should we have re- sented this woman’s false need or let the opportunity to serve prompt us to greater Christ-like charity? Should we mete out love only to those who love us back? Such were the dilemmas of my childhood. Implicit in a faithful Mormon life is the willingness to be obedient, even when we don’t always understand the purpose behind a command- ment, and childhood in New York City taught me the importance of trust- ing laws and leaders in an earthly context before I was ever forced to trust in them spiritually.

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