Lusterware

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote an essay, “Lusterware,” that cited Emily Dickinson’s poem, “It Dropped So Low in My Regard.”

It dropped so low — in my Regard –
I heard it hit the Ground –
And go to pieces on the Stones
At bottom of my Mind –

Yet blamed the Fate that flung it — less
Than I denounced Myself,
For entertaining Plated Wares
Upon my Silver Shelf –

The Shelf is a common metaphor in the disaffected Mormon underground (henceforth DAMU). It’s a common response to ideas that don’t match your paradigm - you take those ideas and stick them on your Shelf, to be dealt with Later, or Some Other Time.

I like this poem because as Ulrich said, some things that look pretty and shiny and valuable aren’t, and they needn’t be treated as such.

Unfortunately, the paradigm in the DAMU is that everything that goes on the shelf - Lusterware, silver plate, and sterling - all gets muddled in together. Sometimes, the ideas that don’t match the believer’s paradigm are junk. Other times, though, the ideas that don’t match the paradigm are valuable, true things. And when you shove enough stuff on the shelf, and the shelf breaks, the valuable true things are all mixed up with the broken Plated Wares. What a mess. How much more work it is to pick through the broken junk to find the valuable, true things, than to just put things on the right shelf to begin with - or to just throw the junk away.