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From my front porch, I can hit with a rock roughly half the people I see at church on Sunday. Wait a few minutes and the other half will drive by and I can get them, too.

Being a go-to-church Mormon in Utah means living so close to fellow ward members that not much happens that the entire congregation doesn't know about in five minutes tops.

If you get promoted, arrested, pregnant, fired or just locked out of the house in your underwear, it's general ward knowledge almost before it stops happening.

Religion normally doesn't get this nosy outside of an armed compound.

This kind of cheek-to-jowl living can be intrusive and is considered by some as one of the biggest drawbacks to active participation in Utah Mormonism.

It also happens to be one of our greatest strengths. You just have to wade through a lot of church to appreciate it.

At work on Tuesday, I caught the noon news broadcast on television.

A van had been obliterated in a traffic crash. A young mother and two small children were being rushed to emergency rooms by helicopter and ambulance.

I tuned it out. Not my job. None of my business.

Hours later I learned that the van belonged to the young couple living across the street from me in Herriman, Eric and Jeana Quigley.

Not only do I see the Quigleys in church, I actually have hit Eric with a rock. We ate dinner with them at a neighborhood party the night before the crash. Our grandkids played with daughters Bianca and Miranda.

The accident occurred as Jeana took her daughters to swimming lessons. While making a turn in an intersection, their van was struck broadside by a truck. The impact spun them into the path of another vehicle that also slammed into them.

Jeana was knocked unconscious and was badly lacerated. Aside from assorted bruises, 4-year-old Bianca's most significant injury was the outrage she felt when paramedics cut off her new swimming suit.

Fourteen-month-old Miranda suffered serious head injures and died three days later at Primary Children's Hospital.

Here's where all that nosiness and boring church pays off.

Although the accident occurred several miles from home, the dust literally had not settled before someone from the ward stopped and was pulling through the wreckage. The rest of the ward knew about it before the cops and paramedics showed up.

Ward members went to all three hospitals, contacted Eric at work and organized into labor squads. People who didn't get in on the immediate-need level were frantic for some way to help.

In 48 hours, the Quigley yard was mowed, home cleaned, laundry done, refrigerator stocked, relatives fed and a trust fund set up at a local bank. We would have given their dog a bath if they had one.

There is a positive side to the congregational microscope my ward lives under, one shared to varying degrees by those in other churches. What happens to a few happens to all.

Today, I cut church some slack. Today, I say the point of all that nosiness is to wind us up for moments like this, times when we won't tune it out because it is our job and our business.

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Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby welcomes mail at 90 S. 400 West, Suite 700, Salt Lake City, UT 84101, or e-mail at rkirby@sltrib.com.