Disposing of used garments

[Anonymous]

Okay, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and while I was formulating this post, Rational Faiths did an excellent post about garments. Be sure and read it if you haven’t already.

Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the rules for disposing worn-out garments. It’s more or less understood that you are supposed to cut them up and burn the marks. But… how do we know that? It’s not written down anywhere. They don’t tell you this during the initiatory and they don’t tell you this during the endowment, unless something has changed since I stopped attending the temple. It’s not included on the packaging when you buy garments (that’s what I would do… presumably, when someone is buying new garments, that means they are looking to get rid of some old ones). The FAQ on the distribution center website says this:

Quote:

Q. How do I dispose of garments and other sacred clothing that are worn out?

A. All questions about the disposal of sacred clothing should be directed to your local priesthood leader or to a member of a temple presidency.

Think about that: Only an endowed member is allowed to access the section of the site where they sell garments, yet the disposal instructions are so sacred that they can’t even spell them out there? Instead they refer you to a bishop or SP (who is inevitably male, and a lot of women don’t like asking underwear questions of men they barely know). It might be that the disposal instructions are written down in HB1, but very few members of the church (almost none of them female) have access to that book. Or it might be that even HB1 can’t spell out the instructions, and what the bishop or SP is telling you is only what HE has heard via word of mouth, which means anything he says is subject to leadership roulette.

Question the first: why all the secrecy? If part of garment wearing is disposing them in a God-approved fashion, why not write it down somewhere where the average member can read it? What happens if you don’t know you’re supposed to ask your bishop, and nobody thinks to tell you, and you just throw them away? (I could see this happening with a young convert who doesn’t have family support.) Are we worried that people are going to make fun of us? But should that really be a concern? After all, the Newsroom posted that video showing the garments & ceremonial temple stuff. They probably did that to remove a lot of mystery, and therefore the stigma, but it doesn’t make sense to insist on still having mystery with this one specific aspect of garment wearing (getting rid of them).

Question the second: Am I the only one who is really uncomfortable with the cutting and burning? I don’t personally view the garment as being sacred in and of itself (despite the fact that the Distribution Center website describes them as ‘sacred clothing’). I tend to take a really pragmatic approach to my religious faith, and viewing the garments as being imbued with some sort of sacredness doesn’t really fit with that. And the aforementioned Newsroom video insisted that we don’t see our garments as somehow mystical or magical (urban legends about G’s stopping a bullet to the contrary). Yet, the cutting-and-burning ritual seems to imply that they are imbued with some sort of mystical power which must be released before we send them to a landfill.

Question the third and final: Am I the only one who just doesn’t do it anymore? Last time I cleaned out the closet I came across a stash of seriously nasty maternity garments, and I just put them in the trash (under cover of night so my husband doesn’t catch me). But the way I see it, I never covenanted to anything regarding garment wearing, including the correct method of disposal. (Despite what the TR interview says, we never covenant to wear garments; the only thing the endowment says is that we are now authorized to wear them.) Now, it’s entirely possible that when I stand before the judgement seat, the Lord will say, “Well, Sister [Joni], you paid your tithing, you served in your church callings, and you wore your garments every day of your life. But you didn’t cut them up and burn them before throwing them in the trash. To the Telestial Kingdom with you!” But… if God is that petty and willing to split hairs, He will probably find something else that makes me unworthy, and why would I want to spend eternity in the presence of someone like that?

[Anonymous]

My daughter went through last month for her first time. Burning was not suggested. Cutting them, cutting out the symbols, and disposing of them separately was recommended.

Fun facts from the past: My family used to use the cut up ones as rags. “Isn’t that special.”

[Anonymous]

I have only heard of this when the temple pres talked with my kids as they went through for the first time. I was never officially told about it or the “don’t let them touch the ground”. I don’t even agree about doing that to the flag. Sure you need to keep it clean, but letting it touch a very clean floor is not the same as throwing it in a pile of loose dirt.

I too disposed of some old garments by placing them in a bag and then placing them in the kitchen trashbag. I too did it so my wife didn’t see me as she gets all on me when I even let them drop on the floor.

[Anonymous]

mom3 wrote:

Burning was not suggested.

Considering some of the fabrics, I suspect that’s more a matter of safety than sacrilege. Remember the rules were originally written when they were all made from natural fibers.

[Anonymous]

mom3 wrote:

My daughter went through last month for her first time. Burning was not suggested. Cutting them, cutting out the symbols, and disposing of them separately was recommended.

I was endowed in 2000. My husband was the one who told me you have to burn the marks after you cut them out; he was endowed in 1993. He was probably given this information by someone who was endowed in the 1940s or ’50s (a time when they would have only been made of natural fibers, which are safer to burn). So, either the policy has changed, or my husband was misinformed. Either way, isn’t that an argument in favor of being a little more upfront with this information? What are they afraid is going to happen if the current policy is posted on the sealed portion of the website that only endowed members can access?

(We don’t have a fireplace, and didn’t want to start a house fire, so my husband would throw them in the barbecue grill whenever he was getting ready to make burgers. Think about that. We were burning cut-up used underwear in a barbecue grill. And people say Mormons aren’t weird anymore. 😆 )

Frankly, I don’t even see the necessity of cutting them up before throwing them away. Why do they need to be unrecognizable, when the Newsroom is able to show them to the world in that video? What is going to happen if the garbage man decides to root through my bags before loading them onto the truck? Will my not-cut-up underwear melt his face off like the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones? :problem:

[Anonymous]

LookingHard wrote:

I too disposed of some old garments by placing them in a bag and then placing them in the kitchen trashbag. I too did it so my wife didn’t see me as she gets all on me when I even let them drop on the floor.

Although my husband is a stickler for correct disposal, he has no problem with letting his or my garments touch the ground when they are… removed in a hurry. 😮

[Anonymous]

When I went through the temple for the first time in 1985, I was told to cut out the marks, cut each mark into at least 4 pieces so they were not recognizable, and then the old garments could be used as rags.

Quite frankly, a undergarment with the nipple areas cut out looks worse than just about anything. I’ve always just cut the marks out and thrown the garments away.

[Anonymous]

I always heard cut out the marks and cut them up to make sure they aren’t recognizable. I went looking and found the policy in handbook 2 (the public one) https://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/selected-church-policies?lang=eng#21.1.42” class=”bbcode_url”>https://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/selected-church-policies?lang=eng#21.1.42:

Handbook 2:21.1.42 Temple Clothing and Garments wrote:

To dispose of worn-out temple garments, members should cut out and destroy the marks. Members then cut up the remaining fabric so it cannot be identified as a garment. Once the marks are removed, the fabric is not considered sacred.

To dispose of worn-out temple ceremonial clothing, members should destroy the clothing by cutting it up so the original use cannot be recognized.

So there you go. Someone should probably update the page where you buy garments with a link to the policy rather than a suggestion to ask a leader. If you’ll excuse the irreverence, to comply with policy I’m not sure I’d have to perform so much as one cut on the temple ceremonial clothing. :angel: :angel:

Joni wrote:

Frankly, I don’t even see the necessity of cutting them up before throwing them away. Why do they need to be unrecognizable, when the Newsroom is able to show them to the world in that video?

But they didn’t show the marks in the video, at least I think they didn’t, and I bet that’s what’s at issue. They don’t want people seeing the marks.

Joni wrote:

What is going to happen if the garbage man decides to root through my bags before loading them onto the truck?

Missionaries were robbed all the time on my mission. There were many stories of kids running around the streets in garment tops that were presumably stolen off of clotheslines. Ordinarily I’d say it was one of many mission urban legends but I was robbed enough to where I believe the stories.

Joni wrote:

Will my not-cut-up underwear melt his face off like the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones? :problem:

😆 That’s why I try to change my underwear at least once every two or three days.

LookingHard wrote:

I too did it so my wife didn’t see me as she gets all on me when I even let them drop on the floor.

Yikes. With the burning and never touching the floor it sounds like someone has conflated flag disposal with garment disposal.

That reminds me of one time where someone got 👿 👿 at me because I put a hymnal on the floor of the chapel (to get it out of the way) and unconsciously put my foot on top of it. You’d think I just walked my 2001st cubit on Shabbat or something. :angel:

[Anonymous]

So I could see how ‘destroy’ could be interpreted to mean ‘burn.’ It’s probably a matter of natural fibers vs. whatever they are made out of these days.

Interesting that it’s actually written down in HB1. So, in order to find out how to dispose of used underwear, an endowed person has to sign in to the LDS website, go to the Distribution page, look up the FAQ’s, and THEN call the ward executive secretary, who will then get you an appointment with the bishop, who will get his Handbook down off the shelf and turn to the appropriate page and say “you have to cut them up and destroy the marks,” which may or may not include burning, depending on what your bishop was taught when HE went through the temple however many decades ago.

Good grief!

What would be the harm in saying, in the FAQ, on their own password-protected website, “cut them up and destroy the marks.” What will happen if I read those words with my own eyes, rather than hearing those words spoken to me by a bishop (keeping in mind that since I’m a woman, making an appointment with him to talk ABOUT MY UNDERWEAR is going to be uncomfortable for the both of us) ? :wtf:

Anyway, it’s probably a cop-out, but I’m going to go ahead and exempt myself from the requirement to destroy them for the simple reason that I am not allowed to read Handbook 1, and I don’t think it’s fair of God to hold me responsible for information that’s ONLY contained in a book that I am not allowed to read.

Just hope I don’t get struck by lightning.

[Anonymous]

Joni wrote:

So I could see how ‘destroy’ could be interpreted to mean ‘burn.’ It’s probably a matter of natural fibers vs. whatever they are made out of these days.

Interesting that it’s actually written down in HB1. So, in order to find out how to dispose of used underwear, an endowed person has to sign in to the LDS website, go to the Distribution page, look up the FAQ’s, and THEN call the ward executive secretary, who will then get you an appointment with the bishop, who will get his Handbook down off the shelf and turn to the appropriate page and say “you have to cut them up and destroy the marks,” which may or may not include burning, depending on what your bishop was taught when HE went through the temple however many decades ago.

Good grief!

What would be the harm in saying, in the FAQ, on their own password-protected website, “cut them up and destroy the marks.” What will happen if I read those words with my own eyes, rather than hearing those words spoken to me by a bishop (keeping in mind that since I’m a woman, making an appointment with him to talk ABOUT MY UNDERWEAR is going to be uncomfortable for the both of us) ? :wtf:

Anyway, it’s probably a cop-out, but I’m going to go ahead and exempt myself from the requirement to destroy them for the simple reason that I am not allowed to read Handbook 1, and I don’t think it’s fair of God to hold me responsible for information that’s ONLY contained in a book that I am not allowed to read.

Just hope I don’t get struck by lightning.

It was handbook 2, so you are fully guilty for not studying it cover to cover. Shame on you.

[Anonymous]

I spend zero mental or emotional energy on this, frankly. I flat out don’t care.

[Anonymous]

LookingHard wrote:

It was handbook 2, so you are fully guilty for not studying it cover to cover. Shame on you.

Ooh, you’re right! Now I’m embarrassed that I didn’t already know that. But it also makes the refusal to address it directly just that much weirder. So, on the garment FAQs that only endowed members can read, why does it say “We can’t tell you how to dispose of them; ask your bishop” instead of providing a link to the relevant Handbook seection that is already online?

Truly bizarre.

Anyway, I’m looking at it now and it does say to ‘cut up and destroy’ the marks. Not sure what they mean by destroy, I think since it says cut up AND destroy, then simply cutting them up is not a sufficient means of destruction; we are to do something ELSE in addition to the cutting up, but they do not specify what that is. Hey, anybody got some hydrofluoric acid I can borrow? 😆

And then there’s this sentence:

Quote:

Once the marks are removed, the fabric is not considered sacred.

Hey, it’s our friend Vague Passive Voice! “Considered sacred” by whom? I certainly don’t. If the fabric of our garments is considered sacred, why don’t they mention that in the temple, or address it in Gospel Doctrine lessons or Conference talks? Sacred fabric seems like a pretty big thing to be mentioned only in one throwaway line in a manual that few people read (unless it’s a REALLY boring sacrament meeting). Also, how does the fabric BECOME sacred? The marks are just a tight zig-zag stitch (I think in some they are silkscreened). When the last stitch is completed, does the fabric become sacred on its own, or does it have to be separately blessed by a priesthood holder? What if I don’t believe that fabric can be sacred at all?

I suppose I should do like Ray, and not think about it at all. But this is me, post-Faith Transition: I think about everything. And it really does bug me to be told “you made a covenant in the temple to wear garments” when I know for a fact I did no such thing. And I am uncomfortable with a lot of magical thinking in religion (garments can stop a bullet!) and we have a LOT of it surrounding our underwear.

I didn’t covenant to dispose of my garments a certain way, and I never believed that they were made of sacred fabric, so I throw mine in the trash when they are worn out. Although I wear them for a good 8 or 10 years before I replace them. Those things are expensive.

[Anonymous]

I’m assuming they don’t spell it out in a more visible place because they don’t want to look flat-out strange and supersitious. All of this taps into a pretty primitive part of us, I think. It’s something we’re comfortable with in the case of disposing of an American flag – because we’re “all” Americans – but we’re not all garment-wearing Mormons.

I dispose of mine now in a way that makes common sense to me, but I don’t feel comfortable just doing the same for my husband. I allow that he might want to do differently.

My two cents….

[Anonymous]

Joni wrote:

Hey, anybody got some hydrofluoric acid I can borrow?

For most of the synthetics, acetone might do the job pretty well. Just grab a bottle of dollar store nail polish remover, pour off about a third and drop the cut out bits into it.

[Anonymous]

Ann, please don’t dispose of your husband in the same way you dispose of your garments.

[Author]

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