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I’m getting like Bill … gun shy of pushing the submit button … but here goes: This thread has a lot of hollow talk about “symbolism”. I don’t believe I saw any talk about ordinances.
In the doctrine … there is an absolute need in the exactness of the, might I call it physical aspects of an ordinance. For example if a toe pops up in a baptism, it must be repeated. Or if the Priests wording of Sacrament prayer is wrong, it must be repeated. And of course the absolute requirement of the ORDANANCE of baptism is required for salvation just as the ordnances of the temple are required for exaltation.
Are these “tenants” not some of the most basic and fundamental tenants of the church? Are all doctrines of the church fair smorgasbord items? Is there a difference between a doctrine and a tenant (i.e. are all tenants smorgasbord items as well)? These are rhetorical questions. The point being … at what point am I really just a cultural Mormon, where any denomination (or non-denominational) search for Christ would do?
There is a fine line between the “presentation of the endowment” and the Ordinances associated with the supposed restored Priesthood of God here on earth. Messing with just the presentation has always been a problem for me. Messing with the ordinances is the equivalent of a fallen prophet/church in my old-school book.
For me, the buffet menu items of choice would likely be the concepts of perfecting myself, over the period of a mortal lifetime, via the teachings (symbologies) involved in the names, signs, tokens and covenants of the various levels of the restored priesthood of God.
Most of the concepts of Adam/God with the ultimate goals of the Patriarchal (Holy) order, being Kings and Priests, Queens and Priestesses would likely be my food items of choice.
To me, the presentation of the endowment was not a history lesson, but a presentation of how the literal fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant blessing would be fulfilled, for my wife/wives and I
For what it’s worth … I would state that the ultimate promise (and hence goal) of the endowment to me, is to become a King and a Priest unto the most High God to rule and reign in the house of Israel forever. Maybe the Temple ceremony is not as Christ centered as we might want to believe.
Timp, once you’ve gone through the temple to receive your own ordinances, do you find it of value to return to do the work for the dead? Of course. I’ve done a lot of my own and my wife’s families work (sounds like the church might finally have some decent temple ready software … it used to really suck).
For eight years, I worked two nights a week in the temple. So yes it was important to me to go back and work for the dead.
Some time I’ll have to tell you my story about meeting BKP for what I assumed was going to be my excommunication over Jewish holocaust victim work (which we did for years in the Provo Temple before it became a hot issue).
timpanogos wrote:Are all doctrines of the church fair smorgasbord items?
Yes.
Tom, As you can likely see from my posting so far, I’m like a schizophrenic with a deeply ingrained belief system on the one side and a disbelief in that same system on the other.
Ray and you have already left me some great things to chew on already in a different thread that I just want to watch and think about for awhile.
It appears Ray might know a thing or two about sumo wrestlers. Unfortunately I’ve built a UFC fighter by mistake, who loves “meat” and potatoes!
As much as I might want to try some fruit and vegies, the Mean son-of-a-gun is not too hip on being torn down.
If only I’d built a lightweight.
🙄 Timpanogas, I think I understand where you are coming from on a lot of this stuff, especially pertaining to the temple. I also served as an ordinance worker for 2 years in the Provo temple when I was a BYU student. I loved officiating in the ordinances of the Holy Temple and found a great deal of meaning in the ordinances. I often felt that Sunday services paled in comparison to the truths of the temple and that the LDS church was essentially meaningless without the temple. Sacrament meeting was essential for the ordinance of the sacrament, but I often felt the other meetings were nearly useless as we discussed the same things over and over again with the same repetition of answers. I recognized that the meetings could be useful for fellowship of the saints, but I did not find my support with the saints, rather my support came from deep doctrinal understanding.
MisterCurie wrote:Timpanogas,
I think I understand where you are coming from on a lot of this stuff, especially pertaining to the temple. I also served as an ordinance worker for 2 years in the Provo temple when I was a BYU student. I loved officiating in the ordinances of the Holy Temple and found a great deal of meaning in the ordinances. I often felt that Sunday services paled in comparison to the truths of the temple and that the LDS church was essentially meaningless without the temple. Sacrament meeting was essential for the ordinance of the sacrament, but I often felt the other meetings were nearly useless as we discussed the same things over and over again with the same repetition of answers. I recognized that the meetings could be useful for fellowship of the saints, but I did not find my support with the saints, rather my support came from deep doctrinal understanding.
yes, it sounds like we have a lot in common.
That was one of the very cool things about the Provo temple … Ordinance workers typically averaged 73 years old, plus. It was nice and likely unique to have a lot of BYU youth officiating in the Provo temple.
timpanogos wrote:Some time I’ll have to tell you my story about meeting BKP for what I assumed was going to be my excommunication over Jewish holocaust victim work (which we did for years in the Provo Temple before it became a hot issue).
Tell me about this Timpanogos? I still have a hard time with the temple. I have not gone for years now, especially since my husband and all 3 of my kids have left the church. Some people seem to have such wonderful spiritual experiences in connection with the temple and others, like me, have had negative experiences with the temple. I am glad some of the things in the temple have changed because some of it was actually kind of scary for me.
I had a nice talk with my mom tonight regarding some of my questions and feel a lot more confindant with the thoughts and feelings I have. I am so glad that my mom is who she is. She would fit nicely here I think. It’s nice to sit and have a real conversation about these things. Bridget_Night, Stan James. For some reason he took me in and shared things with me. He had worked for over 20 years in the Provo Temple when I first started their and meet him.
There was an unusual story … I don’t know the whole of it, but 3 books with 20,000 names in each book where found under a bridge. Somehow Stan got one of these books. The names were of Jewish Holocaust victims.
Stan spearheaded the work in the Provo temple doing these names for several years. Everyone at the temple was involved in the work to one extent or another. After the 20k were complete he started in on the parents of these names. I’m a computer software programmer and had done a fair amount of “Temple Ready” for my own family and so knew the programs provided by the church to do this at the time. Their process was horribly slow and so I wrote a program to do the “Temple Readies” for Stan in a much faster/automated way. We did this for a long time.
Then the stink came about, the Jewish community had found out about the work and were in an uproar. The Provo Temple shut Stan down from doing any more. Out of the 40,000 parent names, we only had about 2000 names left to do. Stan asked me to temple ready the remaining names and send them off to other temples to be done, and I did.
A week later, a big article in the Sunday paper announced the big outrage and the Church’s new policy. I’d just sent out 2000 names, split up to many temples the week before. I felt guilty and took my disks, paper tail, etc in a bag up to the Church Office building. I handed the bag, and a note to the guard at the bottom of the steps in the building where the GA’s hang out, and said “I’m sure someone is going to want to talk to me about this, I’ll be over in the lobby of the main building”.
Well, sure enough, they wanted to talk to me … but back to your comment.
I’m one that did have good experiences at the temple. I had some great experiences doing work for my own family as well as the Holocaust victims over all those years. I also had good experiences seeking and trying to learn personal revelation. The Temple was always a safe, quite, special place for me.
I remember my first time. I had gone through a repentance process for over 1 year to be able to marry my wife in the Temple. At the time, there were not Temple classes and I had NO clue what was ahead for me. My Bishop came with me, but I had no one else there, except my wife, whom I knew. I had done a lot of bad things in my youth. Going blindly into the initiatory, I remember the tears that flowed, as I realized the concept that God loves me and has provided a way for me to become clean, that I really could turn from the old and start anew.
I suppose it was this very first experience, that set the tone of it for me. I wish I had some words of comfort for your sense of fear. I know that there is much there that could easily be viewed as strange and scary. With all of my doubts and problems … I truly do not believe there is anything sinister about it. It is all meant to uplift.
Even after all of these years of inactivity, my wife continues to go. I would never discourage her, or anyone else from going.
Is there any particular things about it I could address for you? I would be glad to address them in private if I can help?
Dear Timpanogos, Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with me. It does help to hear uplifiting, positive experiences. My dad had such a testimony of temple work and genealogy and is partly why he joined the church. My first experiences in the temple were in 1969, in the St. George and Salt Lake Temples, just before I left on my mission to Austria. Those were not necessarily bad experiences, but it was all very strange to me. It was when they still had live actors for the devil, etc, and blood oaths. I also did not feel comfortable putting knee to knee and body to body so close to older men getting through the viel. It was after I got married that it became more difficult. I seemed to fall asleep the minute the lights went out and the movie started even though I had not been tired before I came into the temple. It was all very ritualistic and strange to me. I also did not like that women sat on one side and men on the other as I wanted to be sitting next to my husband. I heard that it used to be that way at one time. One time, I got sent in a room to do washings and annoitings for others and ended up missing the endowment session with my husband. That really upset me as I really wanted to spend this time with my husband. Also, I thought it was crazy going round and round for 2 hours doing washings and annointings. So, I started praying while doing this and I asked God to help me get a testimony and good feeling about what I was doing at least. No such thoughts or feelings ever came. I cried when I came out of the temple and my husband and dad did not know what to do to comfort me. Then one time when I was pregnant and the session started, I began sneezing and getting a bad cold. I had no hankerchief, and was led out to take care of that. I was doing fine and came back in and the sneezing started all over again. I eventually did make it through the viel, but when I got into the clestial room, everyone seemed so unspiritual. I heard and saw men taking their hats off and talking about how uncomfortable they were and others saying it felt hot and stuffy to them and wanted to get out of there. Well, that did not add good experiences. Another time, I got food poisoning just before I got to the temple and was violently sick for several hours. One of the worst times was when I went through a session and I was looking at my husband and thought, “I do not want that man for eternity.” I was so unhappy in my marriage at the time. As I write all this, I see that maybe bad experiences I was having in my life was carrying over into going to the temple. My husband was alwasy struggling with his testimony and it was causing me to doubt. It is interesting that once when I came out of the Chicago temple, and I was really struggling with my faith, I went to the lds book store nearby and felt led to a small book called, “For those Who Wonder,” by Jeff Burton which really helped me.
Anyway, I would enjoy hearing any positive experiences people have had on this group in regards to the temple.
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