i think its finally time for me to write a post

[Anonymous]

hello everyone! i’ve been lurking on this site for the past few months. it has been a HUGE help to me! i was in a seriously bad place with the all or nothing mindset. i spent such a long time in tears at night, vacillating between A. there is no God B. there is a God and he’s an a**hole. it was such a relief to find out that there was a third option! my journey hasn’t been as long as some of yours. i’ve been a lifelong member with a huge family, and all of them completely entrenched in the church and its culture. I started having doubts about 2 years ago. when i came to realize that i’m actually a Liberal Progressive Feminist (a sin in and of itself in most of my family/ward) i really began to examine the history of the church, especially the status of women in the organization. what a painful realization that has been for me! reading about how the relief society has been reduced from an organization parallel to the first presidency, to little more than a club where women go to get away from their children, was truly mind blowing.

so to get to my main point behind this post. i feel like im in a reasonably comfortable place with most of my beliefs. on a lot of topics, i’ve progressed to the point where i can find middle ground and a peaceful balance between what i believe and what i can ignore as not truly doctrine. but i’m struggling right now with two biggies (i’ll address the other in a separate post i think). i hope this is okay to discuss on this site, but i’m not sure what to do about Garments. I was married in the temple about 7 years ago (when i was barely 19). i never liked garments or the temple even. i suffered through both because i thought it made me more righteous, i thought it was what God wanted. now i’m discovering the history of garments, and it makes me sick. for the past few months i’ve been on and off wearing them, without ever really coming to any decision. but now i’m at the point, that i really want to just take them off and not look back. BUT! i’m also really afraid that i’ve come to this conclusion, simply because it fits in with what i’ve wanted rather than because its the right thing to do. i’m still plagued by doubts that i’m just giving in to my sinful, selfish nature, and that if i really loved God i would put him before my personal comfort/feelings.

i know no one can make the decision for me, i know i have to work this out for myself. but i’m feeling so confused and alone here. i guess i’m just hoping for some comfort and words of wisdom if any one has any. if any one has any more resources they can point me to, so that i can research the topic more, i would love to do that as well.

thanks for letting me go on for so long, i hope i’ve explained everything clearly (its easy to just ramble on and on when your writing in a forum).

[Anonymous]

Glad to have you on board, Cakelady. It’s nice to have a safe place to be able to sort through some things. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

thanks for sharing your story. I’m glad you are here and want to discuss the things you are thinking about.

cakelady wrote:

i’m still plagued by doubts that i’m just giving in to my sinful, selfish nature, and that if i really loved God i would put him before my personal comfort/feelings.

This caught my eye. I understand those feelings…especially for those of us who have been taught and warned about things for so long throughout our lives.

I think I went through a phase where I had to try to shed feelings of “I should be that way” or “I can’t let myself think this way” or “I’d be happier only if I would pray harder”.

While sometimes those inner thoughts are important for us to listen to and learn from, sometimes we have to stop telling ourselves we should be more like some image of a perfect mormon we have in our minds, and just start to realize we are on a journey to become better. So allowing doubts and seeking answers is a good thing, and it doesn’t mean we have to be the rebellious teenager to go out and party and break all rules just because we are angry inside.

I would just suggest you start thinking about what is sinful behavior, and avoid negative behaviors, but maybe somethings that you initially feel are forbidden (like doubting the literal history of the bible)…isn’t really a sin after all…it is actually ok to go there and allow yourself to feel at peace being honest with yourself.

Just always trade up…things that are bothering you now can be traded up for something better that makes you feel more peaceful and moving in a good direction for your future happiness.

Welcome to the forum, cakelady. By the way, do you make cakes?

[Anonymous]

I totally hear what you are saying about status of women in the church. I used to be completely in the fold, but I’ve come to realize that we really do repress women in numerous ways. It’s completely entrenched in our culture. After 27 years of marriage, my wife and I had it out with each other a few weeks ago. What I had taken to be chivalry (and I got this from my culture), I see now in a hundred ways was controlling and inhibiting. We are working through completely new ways to approach our relationship. It has been enlightening and emancipating, for both of us. We are completely rethinking how we raise our daughter.

[Anonymous]

Welcome.

There is a very recent thread is about garments. Rather than add something here, I’m just going to add the link.

http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1703

[Anonymous]

Welcome, cakelady!

I agree with heber. I think that in some ways there is something bigger at play then just wearing garments. Why do you feel subservient to what you perceive is “God’s command”??

There is obedience out of fear and obedience out of love. Discovering that difference may be the key… Based on your comments, it sounds like you recognize the intellectual part of this dichotomy but your heart may be in a different place. It might also be your own perception of who “God” is.

[Anonymous]

Honey, is that you? 😮 Just kidding! I’m pretty sure my wife never visits this site, but your first paragraph had me wondering for a second there, CL.

Welcome to StayLDS! I realize there’s another garment thread going on (thanks, Ray, for pointing that out), but to answer your specific concern, even if President Monson called a news conference tomorrow to announce the church was a giant fraud and he was leaving to become an evangelical, I’d probably continue wearing my garments anyway. The way I see it, they represent the covenants I made with God, not any man-made organization. So even if it turns out God thinks the covenants I made are silly and pointless, I hope he/she/it would still recognize my efforts and thank me for them.

[Anonymous]

thank you for all the wonderful insights. i love this forum, because of the emphasis on promoting and enhancing spirituality, and how uplifting everyone is. i hopped over to the NOM website briefly, and it was not an uplifting experience, just the opposite in fact. so thank you all for staying positive and focusing on the good, and most of all for really caring.

after thinking about some of your responses i think i’ve worked a few things out. maybe. i don’t really know! LOL. but i know a few things about myself, and one of them is that i REALLY do believe in God, and i really do want to do his will. in the before-time (as a TBM) i thought i had a guidebook of exactly what God’s will was. then crises. and now i realize that i’m left to discover God’s will for me all on my own, and i just don’t trust myself to make the right decision. my whole life i was taught “follow the prophet” “do what the prophet says and you’ll be okay” “the words of the GA’s at conference are modern day revelation of God’s will” “the temple recommend interview questions are the same you would be asked to get into heaven”. i was never taught to trust myself or think things through on my own. instead, i was taught my whole life that dissenters were people who were rationalizing their sins. as a result, i really don’t have any faith in my own decisions or conclusions. i haven’t prayed in a long time, but i’m working back up to it. i suppose thats the only real way for me to feel confident in any decision i make.

and here’s a follow up question (and maybe i should post this on the other thread? Admin’s let me know if I need to redirect this to the first thread): some of you have repeated the rationale for garments that i’ve always heard “the garments are symbolic of the covenants we made in the temple, and serve as a reminder and protector to us”. but is there any doctrinal basis for this? i accepted this line in the past, but then i discovered that garments were originally intended to identify people (men) who were practicing polygamy secretly. i personally have come to the conclusion that polygamy was not God’s will, and was in fact an abomination before God. (i can get behind truly consensual polyamory, although i don’t know if polyamorous couples would want the commitment of eternity. but the institutionalized practice of polygamy as the only way to salvation is sickening to me.) so then, is the wearing of the garment really just a traditional left over from polygamy, that later prophets have attached different meaning to in an attempt to wedge them into modern church practices? i can’t look at them now without thinking that i’m tacitly embracing polygamy. and i don’t know of any sources to indicate that they were ever meant to have any other meaning.

[Anonymous]

Welcom cakelady! I’ll have a very short answer to your question for now — by saying it makes sense to me that garments are symbolic. What else could they be? They are certainly not body armor! 😮 A symbol has meaning for anyone who gives it meaning. We can be told what it means to others, but ultimately we decide what it means for ourselves. To me, garments are much like a CTR ring, a reminder that I want to be and become my best self. Yes, there is some symbolism shared with Freemasonry and other historical sources. Personally I have come to appreciate those sources and feel they generally stand for good things. Even if some people gave them a meaning that I would not want to support I recognize that my personal meaning for a symbol does not have to equal everything that has ever been thought about it. We have many Christmas traditions and symbols that have pagan roots. Does that mean they have the same purpose for us as they did the pagans?

I know it takes some time to get past “what other people may think”, but I for one think it a worthwhile exercise. Find your own meaning, embrace it, feel good about it, and don’t worry about what others may think!

Glad you found us!

[Anonymous]

cakelady wrote:

i hopped over to the NOM website briefly, and it was not an uplifting experience, just the opposite in fact. so thank you all for staying positive and focusing on the good, and most of all for really caring.

Just to quickly put in a good word for NOM, I am a big supporter of what they do. They fill a vital and important role in the faith spectrum of the internet Mormonism movement, IMO. They cover a wider section of the faith spectrum, and allow more freedom of expression (more expression of doubt, in particular). We focus on a tightly focused niche, and our content is much more edited and moderated. I just wanted to point that out. We have a really good relationship with the folks that run that site.

cakelady wrote:

after thinking about some of your responses i think i’ve worked a few things out. maybe. i don’t really know! LOL. but i know a few things about myself, and one of them is that i REALLY do believe in God, and i really do want to do his will. … … i really don’t have any faith in my own decisions or conclusions. i haven’t prayed in a long time, but i’m working back up to it. i suppose thats the only real way for me to feel confident in any decision i make.

What a fantastic breakthrough for you! It is common for us to really need to tear down our beliefs to the point of just a few things that WE really do believe or have confidence in, totally independent of pressure or “authority” from anyone else. Some people decide they don’t even really have confidence in the existence of God (at least the type of God they used to assume existed).

Just as an observation, you seem to still be afraid of making a mistake, like you are assuming that you can not figure it out, or that the slightest slip is eternally fatal. If there is a God (and I believe there is), then this being made you as you are — a person who is destined for a crisis of faith. Instead of fighting against the process, flow with it. IMO, the only mistake we can make is to stop walking down the path, to sit down in the middle of the journey and give up before the adventure is done. The only way out … is straight through to the other side of the “dark night of the soul.” (to quote St. John of the Cross). We are called by God to a “dark night of the soul.” So the way to “please” God and do His will is to answer the call and flow with the experience.

Since you can no longer depend on the “arm of flesh” and blindly “follow the prophet,” you will only know truth now by trial and error. The good news is that the new “truths” you discover will be powerful and be yours. The bad news is that trial and error involves a lot of the latter — error.

Pray. Meditate. Think. Use the brain and the heart God gave you. Figure it out. Try new things. Try old things in new ways. Reach out to the beautiful and mysterious variety in the world around you for inspiration and spiritual nourishment. Make a lot of mistakes. Stay focused on the adventure and the hero’s journey. Keep moving forward.

cakelady wrote:

some of you have repeated the rationale for garments that i’ve always heard “the garments are symbolic of the covenants we made in the temple, and serve as a reminder and protector to us”. but is there any doctrinal basis for this?

Of course there is a “doctrinal basis” for this idea (a particular view of the symbols). That’s what they tell you in the temple when you put them on and make the commitments. Whether that is the “truth” in some absolute sense … well, that’s really up to you. But I’m not sure someone can claim this view isn’t doctrinal, since that is what someone is told today when they go through the “initiation” process.

cakelady wrote:

i accepted this line in the past, but then i discovered that garments were originally intended to identify people (men) who were practicing polygamy secretly.

I think that argument, which I am very familiar with, reduces the history to an incorrect extreme. There were different versions of the endowment/initiation both before and after that narrow time frame in Nauvoo. Yes, at one point in Nauvoo, the endowment was only being given to people in Joseph’s inner circle who were secretly practicing polygamy. But like I said, I think it is an extreme oversimplification to claim that was the ONLY purpose for garments. Many many people directly after that time were endowed and wore garments that did not practice polygamy.

cakelady wrote:

i personally have come to the conclusion that polygamy was not God’s will, and was in fact an abomination before God. so then, is the wearing of the garment really just a traditional left over from polygamy, that later prophets have attached different meaning to in an attempt to wedge them into modern church practices? i can’t look at them now without thinking that i’m tacitly embracing polygamy.

Garments = polygamy was a reality for a short period of perhaps 2 or 3 years in our 180+ year history. So is that all they were about? Nothing more, nothing less? You can decide that for yourself, and I totally mean that free of any judgment on my part. We make the meaning. You don’t have to wear them. Some people who go through a crisis of faith decide not to. Some people make new meaning out of them. I really don’t personally think polygamy is the only meaning for them. I don’t think many members who wear them think that either (if they even know of this connection), so it’s hard to say that any significant number of people make that meaning … except perhaps fundamentalist break away groups like the FLDS.

cakelady wrote:

and i don’t know of any sources to indicate that they were ever meant to have any other meaning.

The symbolism found in the LDS Temple is not uniquely LDS. And the endowment ceremony we experience today has changed many times since the prototype days in Kirtland, Ohio. I have personally been interested in something called “Sacred Geometry” for many years, and have been interested in other types of European esoteric wisdom (which was a carry over from even older sources in Greece and Egypt). My whole point in saying all that is there really are a lot of sources for understanding the roots and sources of the symbolism in the LDS temple buildings, and in the ceremonies and rituals.

If you would like a free and short sample, I wrote an article for the Mormon Matters blog a little while ago about the symbols on the garments and in the temple: http://mormonmatters.org/2010/01/29/squaring-the-circle-balance-and-ideals/

Another GREAT resource is a book called “The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship.” We have a book review thread here in this forum if you want more information about it. I highly highly recommend this book: http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=895

[Anonymous]

just wanted to say thanks for the thoughtful responses. been away for a few days (i own my own biz in the wedding industry, which means until Oct I’ll have a hard time doing anything but work. not a good time of the year to have to work through my faith!). i’ll definitely put “the mysteries of Godliness” on my book list.

and Brian, thanks for reminding me that its okay to make mistakes! thats a hard one to remember!

[Anonymous]

cakelady wrote:

not a good time of the year to have to work through my faith!

timing is never really good for that…is it? That’s ok…its still there waiting to be dealt with…it ain’t goin anywhere. There’s no rush for it either…you may actually find that having other things to preoccupy your mind might be a better thing than being overly involved in trying to solve life’s mysteries today. Giving time to let it sit and be revisited might be a good thing.

Good luck with the wedding business!

[Anonymous]

Welcome! It can be a difficult process to trust that the Savior actually trusts us. But I strongly believe that He trusts us to do our best and to live the Gospel in a way that truly resonates with the spirit, mind and personality he gave us. He also trusts us to live it within the circumstances we find ourselves in throughout life. As you mentioned, prayer is key to this process of finding our own way. Prayer and humility is key to not using our personal journey as an excuse just to live an easier or more exciting life.

We were created with different personalities and are given different life experiences. My personality is one that simply CANNOT allow me to “bow my head and say yes.” I have to push and wonder and feel okay doubting and even not living what I do not currently have a testimony of. To try otherwise would drive me from the Church while being able to live the Gospel in a way that honors who I am allows me to remain. But I have strong faith that the Lord respects and accepts my testimony as long as I am being humble, sincere and constantly seeking His guidance – even if at the moment there are many things I simply an usure about. I think that is the key to our growth – and the atonement.

Good luck!

[Author]

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