The temple

To me it’s another subtle message that white is best. Do the leaders honestly believe that white is the best representative of all mankind?

No, I don’t believe so. I think they just don’t think about it. I think that’s the same general answer to the question about the wording that is troubling to many women. I think it will change in the future, but it probably will take more than just a few years.

I would favor movies in each country that have native members from that country. In the case of the United States, that would include multiple races and ethnic heritages. That way, each race and ethnicity would see God as looking like them.

I know the most powerful experience I have had in the temple was decades ago in the Atlanta Temple, when the Lord reached through the veil – and the hand was black.

I never really enjoyed the temple. I find it’s a drain on my time. For some reason, I’m not fully self-aware of the things I do in the temple, and people are always correcting me about nitty picky things. My worst experience was being a veil worker. I went once. During that time I was corrected about 5 times and then chastised as we sat in the waiting room for explaining something related to a ticket I received for speeding when others were talking about it.

So, the temple is one thing that I’ve decided is not a big part of my life anymore. I have better, more spiritual experiences sharing my thoughts online and then reflecting on them, serving others in non-church contexts, and having meaningful discussions with my family. I suppose if there was a place near my house where I could go to sit peacefully, that would meet every bit of “need” I have for a temple experience. I once thought of having a little outbuilding that was decorated nicely and peacefully where I could read and think and pray, independent of technology and distractions. It would be every bit as good as the temple.

Haven,

I think it is important to distinguish between questions and criticisms. Either is fine, but confusing the two leads to frustration. Questioning is how we determine what we do believe, criticizing is how we separate ourselves from what we don’t believe.

When it comes to the temple, I think the most rewarding course of action is to figure out what you believe, and then see if and how the temple supports your beliefs. If the temple supports your beliefs, then it’s easy to overlook 19th-century constructs. If it doesn’t support your beliefs, then don’t go to the temple. Pretty simple really. There are elements of the Church I love and other elements I dislike strongly. I find calm by putting more weight on the things I love.

FWIW, I haven’t been to the temple since the 90’s. My reasons are different from yours. Each person has to find what works for them.

I went to the Temple recently with the youth of our ward. It was a great experience.

I took some names of my family with us.

The experience was great because I could talk to the YW & say, this is my Great Grandmother, this is my Grandmother,

these are my Aunts. I knew some of these people personally.

Some of the girls in our group were daughters of our HT. (that was special too.)

It made the experience more personal.

I’ve decided I’m not going to the temple again unless I can take the names of relatives with me.

Mike’s and Bridget’s experiences are great examples of how individuals react differently to the same situations – and how it’s important to acknowledge and accept that. Some people simply can’t attend the temple without extreme negative reactions; others can attend despite not loving it or having a “witness” of any kind about it; others enjoy the quiet escape from “the world”; others absolutely love it.

None of those feelings and reactions are false or wrong. They are what they are, and we are left, individually, to figure out how to deal with our own feelings and reactions in the way that makes the most sense for us, individually.

I have always enjoyed being in the temple, and the peaceful feeling there.

I view it completely symbolic. Those symbols have meant different things to me over different times in my life. Same materials, but just internalizing them differently.

I have had some questions similar to yours, and I am not sure there are “answers” to them…but more the exercise that having it cause you to search and study it out in your mind, and seek more information to help you think through those things…that is where it is helpful. You can get a different point of view on things, and the truths taught can be so different depending on your point of view.

Use those questions to study. Seek out new ideas and new perspectives (like you are doing here). But always remember they are symbolic stories intended to teach us. It isn’t always important what the answers are, but what questions you are asking.

I do not believe in a heaven where women are subject to men, or less than, or cannot get to God unless they go through a man. I can speculate why the temple is written the way it is with rituals the way they are, but I don’t believe heaven is a place where men rule over women. Not everything in the temple needs to be viewed as the way it literally will be in heaven or with God.

It was just so completely foreign to me

Harmony,

I know exactly what you mean. It is very foreign to members of the Church going though it for the first time. I was fully faithful when I went through it and it was a shock to the system. I did learn to love it however. Well… I never loved the ceremony itself, but I loved participating in it. The thing that struck me was how completely unlike our religion the temple is. We have very low symbolism in our Church. Our church buildings are plain. We don’t have crosses, even. We tend to be agreeable to symbolism, but superficially. We treat doctrines as matter-of-fact declarations without delving into layers. What does it mean to be baptized? We never ask ourselves this in the Church… instead we say it is for remission of sins and talk about the importance of our Church having the authority to do it. We read the parables of Jesus with a yawn and skip directly to the explanation of it as described by some GA. We are also very short on ritual. The only ritual we perform outside the temple is the Sacrament, and that is brief, quiet, and sandwiched between the announcements and the first talk. The sacrament in our Church is very nearly an afterthought in its own “sacrament” meeting. So, when we go to the temple and the whole thing is a symbolic rite, it is… disorienting. Outside the temple, our Church is the model of simplicity and straight-forward-ness… kind of blue-collar. Meat-and-potatoes. Down-to-earth. Then you go to the temple and it’s all ritualistic clothing, gestures, sayings, and symbolism. The disconnect couldn’t be bigger.

Am I doing something wrong?

Absolutely not. I think you have to think of the temple as a form of worship and worship has to come from your heart. If you don’t feel it, it serves no purpose. Don’t worry about what others say. If the temple works for you, great, if it doesn’t, great, too. Just find something else that does work for you.

One thing I’d suggest before you go to the temple again (if you go) is to go to a couple of Catholic masses. Observe the people there, and the rite of the mass. Then just project that onto the temple. The endowment ceremony is a similar ritual, but instead of belonging to the Catholics, it belongs to us.

Finally, on symbolism. We make the mistake in our church of trying to understand everything literally. We try to answer unanswerable questions, and when we get to the Book of Revelation, we pull out Cleon Skousen or Bruce McConkie, because we want to understand what the 7 horns mean. Symbolism shouldn’t work that way. Symbols are supposed to be vague. In this way, we can find whatever meaning we want to in them. Good symbols typically have multi-layered meanings, and what one person sees in a symbol might be different from what another sees. Is baptism to ‘wash’ away sins, or is it to be buried with Christ. It is whichever works for you. If I say, “The game of baseball is a metaphor for life” you probably will say, “I see what you mean”, yet I have said nothing about HOW baseball is a metaphor for life. What do the bases represent? What does the bat represent? Why are their 9 players? Why is the ball white with stitches? You can go on the idea that baseball is a metaphor for life and carry that to whatever level you want, to whatever makes sense to you, to whatever makes you stronger in life. The symbols are vague. That’s the same way religious symbols are. What does the sacrament represent? Is it the death of Jesus or the life that he gives us? Is it the body and blood of Christ or is t the Bread of Life (John 6) and the Living Water (John 4)? So, when it comes to the temple, step back. Take the long view. Think about what the temple ceremony represent to you in the large. Then build your own symbology around it.