ToPotC – Chapter 13 (The Temple)

[Anonymous]

This first post will serve as an introduction to a concept before launching into the lesson itself. I wanted to have a place to discuss upcoming lessons at church in an effort to be better prepared. I’d much rather do this for Sunday School but I know our ward is hopelessly out of sync with the rest of the world on Sunday School lessons, it would be difficult to make sure we’re having the right discussion on the right week unless we got way ahead of the schedule. It’s much easier to have a discussion about the 3rd hour where there’s a little more consistency in the lesson schedule and as an added bonus there are only two lessons per month.

I’d like to crowd source to:

[Anonymous]

This was a particularly difficult lesson for me, so much so that I thought about postponing this initiative for a week, a month, or more… until the stars aligned on a lesson where I could make more constructive comments. As a traditional believer I had trouble with scrupulosity and this lesson touches on being worthy of attending the temple, it can be a difficult lesson for people that feel as though they never measure up.

I worry that the story about Hunter’s father and other portions of the lesson might set families up for disappointment.

Quote:

Let us share with our children the spiritual feelings we have in the temple. … Have them plan from their earliest years to go there and to remain worthy of that blessing. Let us prepare every missionary to go to the temple worthily and to make that experience an even greater highlight than receiving the mission call. Let us plan for and teach and plead with our children to marry in the house of the Lord. Let us reaffirm more vigorously than we ever have in the past that it does matter where you marry and by what authority you are pronounced man and wife.

Quote:

I promise you that your personal spirituality, relationship with your husband or wife, and family relationships will be blessed and strengthened as you regularly attend the temple.

I worry that people may be held prisoner by sorrow over loved ones that haven’t lived up to the expectations of temple worthiness, temple attendance, and temple marriage. I’d much rather we look at a person as a whole and not have our happiness hinge on whether a family member has or has not received a temple ordinance. I’m afraid temple worthiness may become an improper standard for happiness in the familial setting. For the record, I wouldn’t shy away from bringing this subject up during the lesson. I think most families have at least one member that is less faithful to the Mormon standards and it’s the elephant in the room in a discussion like this. Will we use the lesson to choose to see what our family member lacks at the expense of who they actually are?

A quote from the lesson can be used to that end:

Quote:

The ability to stand by one’s principles, to live with integrity and faith according to one’s belief—that is what matters. That devotion to true principle—in our individual lives, in our homes and families, and in all places that we meet and influence other people—that devotion is what God is ultimately requesting of us.

One can do all that without ever having attended the temple. I’m sure Howard Hunter’s father was a good man for the first 46 years of Howard’s life, the years before he was endowed. While I do believe temple ordinances are something to celebrate I don’t believe that means we should lament if the only sticking point is a missing temple ordinance.

[Anonymous]

1) We are encouraged to establish the temple as the great symbol of our membership.

If I were teaching the lesson I might pull a quote or two from this section to say I used the manual then make the rest of the lesson be about the symbolism of the temple. I also wanted to point out that the request is to make the temple a symbol of our membership, not the object or focus of our membership.

Quote:

The temple is a place of instruction where profound truths pertaining to the Kingdom of God are unfolded. It is a place of peace where minds can be centered upon things of the spirit and the worries of the world can be laid aside. In the temple we make covenants to obey the laws of God, and promises are made to us, conditioned always on our faithfulness, which extend into eternity

I like exploring ideas that come to me when I substitute every instance of “The temple” in that quote with “My mind” (know ye not that ye are the temple of God). The temple is only a place of instruction and peace because we make it so. I can work on making a place of instruction and peace be a state of mind that can be called upon at any time.

2) Each of us should strive to be worthy to receive a temple recommend.

This section includes a subset of the temple recommend interview questions. Here’s a link to various threads on StayLDS for each of the questions mentioned in the lesson (in the order in which they appear):

Question 1a: God

Question 1b: Jesus Christ

Question 1c: Holy Ghost

Question 4: Sustaining LDS Leadership

Question 5: Law of Chastity

Question 6: Family Conduct

Question 9: Honesty

Question 8: Keeping Covenants

Question 10a: Tithing

Question 10b: Word of Wisdom

These days it feels like temple worthiness comes down to three things: Do you look at porn? Do you pay tithing? and Do you obey the Word of Wisdom? I don’t know where I was going with that but what might we get out of temple attendance if we looked beyond those three things?

Quote:

May this House provide a spirit of peace to all who observe its majesty, and especially to those who enter for their own sacred ordinances and to perform the work for their loved ones beyond the veil. Let them feel of thy divine love and mercy. May they be privileged to say, as did the Psalmist of old, ‘We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.

I include this quote from the lesson here because it includes the word mercy. Perfection is an impossible standard and any determination of worthiness should factor that into the equation. If the temple is a place to go to feel god’s mercy entering the temple as a sinner is a requirement.

[Anonymous]

3) Doing temple work brings great blessings to individuals and families.

This section includes an interesting phrase, if I were teaching the class I might draw everyone’s attention to this phrase and try to generate some discussion about what it means:

Quote:

Temple attendance creates spirituality. It is one of the finest programs we have in the Church to develop spirituality.

What does it mean to create or develop spirituality. Google defines “spirituality” as… …but seriously, when I search ‘define spirituality’ I get:

Quote:

Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all.

I can see how the temple does this. A question to ask during the lesson: Can the temple point me to other sources that create spirituality? To get the subject off of temples if that’s your thing.

4) Let us hasten to the temple.

Hasten… that’s my trigger word. 😈 This section opens with an interesting quote.

Quote:

Let us share with our children the spiritual feelings we have in the temple. And let us teach them more earnestly and more comfortably the things we can appropriately say about the purposes of the house of the Lord.

I may be applying too much artistic license to this one but I see this quote as saying that it’s safe to open up more about what we do in temples. There are only a few things that we aren’t supposed to talk about outside of temples, we’ve built a hedge called “too sacred” around much of the rest. I see this as another safe thing to bring up during a lesson.

Quote:

It is pleasing to the Lord for our youth to worthily go to the temple and perform vicarious baptism for those who did not have the opportunity to be baptized in life. It is pleasing to the Lord when we worthily go to the temple to personally make our own covenants with Him and to be sealed as couples and as families. And it is pleasing to the Lord when we worthily go to the temple to perform these same saving ordinances for those who have died, many of whom eagerly await the completion of these ordinances in their behalf.

Serious question. Does that mean it is displeasing to the lord if we don’t do those things? The lord is happy when I eat a salad for dinner. The lord might also be happy when I eat steak for dinner. Maybe the lord is pleased when I do lots of stuff but does that make it a requirement? Maybe this quote is just establishing a pecking order for good, better, and best activities we can engage in.

[Anonymous]

If I was teaching this lesson, I probably also would focus on the temple as symbol concept and discuss the symbolism I love in the temple.

1) Some of the promises in the initiatory make no sense literally but have cool symbolic meaning.

2) The idea that God will bless every one of his children, if they simply do their best to return to him – regardless of their mortal religious affiliation or lack thereof.

3) The garment as a sign that ALL who leave the temple are clothed with Priesthood power and authority and are prepared to officiate in the ordinances of the Prieathood(s). (If we got to this, I would mention Elder Oaks’ talk recently in the Prieathood Session and simply state that such preparation is symbolic outside the temple until those who hold they keys receive revelation to change that.)

4) Similar to #2, the symbolism of token efforts and signs being enough to return to the presence of the Lord.

5) I also would talk about how the endowment has changed significantly over time,M which gives me hope that the symbolism of which I’m not fond (the remaining sexist elements) will be changed eventually.

[Anonymous]

Nibbler, I love this idea to have a class here online. We have different times to read, so I read through the first 2 posts to respond, and want to discuss something…I haven’t read the 3rd and 4th post yet, but will respond to those as I read them…but I’m stuck on this:

Quote:

I promise you that your personal spirituality, relationship with your husband or wife, and family relationships will be blessed and strengthened as you regularly attend the temple.

This has not been my experience. Or maybe I’m not expressing it correctly. Maybe I should say…it didn’t matter to me.

This is my problem with some church lessons…there are promised blessings that hype up the need for obedience and effort and sacrifice…and yet…life is hard and life sucks.

I served a mission. I was worthy to go through the temple. I served diligently in callings at ward and stake levels. We were married in the DC temple. We had 4 beautiful children and they grew up in the church and with FHE in the home.

My ex wife and I would fight and argue and she would cry and I would go silent until we pulled up to the temple parking lot. Then she would ask me to turn around and go home, we can’t go to the temple with our hearts full of hate…I didn’t hate her (she always put words in my mouth)…perhaps we would benefit most by going in and hear something we needed. She wouldn’t. What was I to do? Leave her in the parking lot? No. We turned around and went home.

Over the years, no gospel message or temple ceremony helped the relationship. I prayed and yearned that this very promise be given to me. To help strengthen my family, like I always hear about at church. There was no other more important thing I prayed for. I could care less if we were poor, if I lost my job, if we wracked up huge medical bills…just keep my family together for eternity with faith in God and service in the church.

Then I was served divorce papers.

So…in discussing this with my brother, he would tell me “Well, perhaps the temple helped it to be better than it could have been without the temple, but still not take away free agency of others.”

BS. That’s what I say. I don’t know what difference it made for me. Thanks for all the empty promises, church. Thanks for framing things with only one way to make things good, and then all the rest of us who don’t have it good are left to think we must be the problem. Do you hear how Pres Uchtdorf talks about divorce:

Quote:

Because no matter how flat your relationship may be at the present, if you keep adding pebbles of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness, eventually a mighty pyramid will begin to grow.

If it appears to take forever, remember: happy marriages are meant to last forever! So “be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great [marriage]. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.”

It may be a gradual work, but it doesn’t have to be a cheerless one. In fact, at the risk of stating the obvious, divorce rarely happens when the husband and wife are happy.

So be happy!

No one knows the depths I went to in order to be kind, loving, understanding, selfless. I won’t go on…except my point…nothing from church or the temple helped my marriage. So…you might as well tell me to smoke pot, because marriages where both enjoy smoking pot together rarely end in divorce. If that sound idiotic…then that is how statement from the church sound to me when they tell me to just be happy in a marriage that is toxic and unhealthy, but I’m supposed to just stay in it and believe someday all the suffering will lead to a great pyramid. Because you know what I hear people say who are stuck in marriages….they say they are too old to make a change in the late 50s or 60s, so it isn’t worth it, but they regret not doing it when they were younger and finding true happiness. I don’t think we should live a life sentence just to prove we can be faithful. Instead, there is so much love and happiness out there we can find if we go seek it. And that can be found in or out of the temple. Just depends how we look for it.

That does not mean the temple is worthless. I can go find peace. I can find quiet places to talk to god. I can go watch my kids get sealed. I can do lots of things in the temple and feel close to god. Do you want to know what I believe with all my heart in my situation…divorce saved my family, not the temple. My kids are doing wonderful. Everyone in the family has been blessed, not by temple attendance, but from a toxic relationship being called what it is, and stopped, so we can all go on in life with good things.

So…divorce was my route. And the earthly courts that grant divorce of marriage do not end the temple sealing that was done according to priesthood power. So, technically I am still sealed to my ex. I am remarried outside the temple. And in love with an angel who is patient with me and saves me every day. No temple covenants…just pure love and devotion and trust for each other.

You ask me which marriage leads to greater love, greater self-worth, greater spirituality, greater closeness and stronger family relationships?? My civil marriage. Not my temple marriage. Hands down, no comparison.

So…that’s what I can’t say in church on Sunday to other people. But that is what I’m thinking the whole time people talk about how the temple is the end goal for all we do and the most important thing we can teach our children.

Poppycock.

Here is what my children know from me: Love is the most powerful motivation for finding happiness in this life. When you find it, hold on to it. If you have it and the 2 of you want to go to the temple and have faith it is eternal…wonderful. That is a beautiful hope in the promise from the Holy Spirit of an ideal state we wish for and the temple can symbolize. But you make your relationships deep and meaningful and spiritual and loving and eternal in or out of the temple. When you find it, cherish it, work for it. The temple becomes part of an expression of the hope and desire. It is symbolic. My civil marriage has all the hopes of the same eternal blessings. If we can’t get sealed in this life…temples allow for me to have them done in the next life, because god looks upon the heart and makes things right and fair and just.

Someone please explain to me, having experienced what I have in the church, where I have gone wrong, why I can’t see it the way this lesson teaches it. Because there are a lot of miserable temple marriages, and a lot of happy civil marriages. So…please…don’t make false promises that hurt credibility of the church, or put the blame and guilt on individuals that don’t have happy little mormon families.

In all seriousness…please…someone tell me if you agree or disagree with how I see it…because hyperbole at church makes me ill.

(Nibbler…you may have struck on a nerve for Heber13…ya think? …but I can’t have this discussion in class on Sunday. THanks for having it here…please help me through my feelings).

[Anonymous]

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t know your ex or all the details of your situation. Know that this is coming from a place of ignorance.

A marriage involves two people. What if one person is doing everything they can to build the pyramid and the other is doing everything they can to tear it down? What happens when one person is adding pebbles of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness but the other is adding pebbles of insecurity, anger, selfishness, egoism, strife, drama, hatred, animosity, and rancor off to the side? I don’t think that plan would work out for any relationship. Maybe Uchtdorf would clarify by saying that marriages are vulnerable things. Diligent effort must come from both people, not just one. That’s the fragile nature of any relationship, we can only control what we do. That’s both a comforting and depressing statement at the same time.

Heber13 wrote:

Quote:

I promise you that your personal spirituality, relationship with your husband or wife, and family relationships will be blessed and strengthened as you regularly attend the temple.

This has not been my experience. Or maybe I’m not expressing it correctly. Maybe I should say…it didn’t matter to me.

I agree. I’ve seen too many people lament the fact that their spouse or a child is not temple worthy (or is uninterested in going) and letting that fact sour an otherwise healthy relationship. I think teachings like that only set people up for disappointment. A temple marriage is the LDS fairy tale ending and I feel our culture builds up this sense of entitlement to the temple ordinances. If the fairy tale ending doesn’t happen we run the risk of lamenting what we don’t have instead of appreciating what we do have. I think I went on a little tangent and I’m repeating myself, I’ll try to refocus.

I think any blanket promise is destined to fail someone out there. People and situations are too unique for a one size fits all solution.

Heber13, you may have built a pyramid to rival all pyramids, better than any other out there… a pyramid that no one ever got the chance to see. From the sound of it your ex saw your pyramid but she came along and said, “That’s a really nice pyramid you’ve got there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.” It’s hard for people to share your perspective, they’ve probably never been sealed to a destroyer.

I have other thoughts on that but I’ll leave it there for now.

[Anonymous]

Thanks nibbler. There is something to be said for striving to do your best. In my case, I feel I have blessed my children and I have grown. My new relationship may actually be the pyramid I was hoping to build all along.

It just has nothing to do with temples. It has to do with what you said…2 people building together instead of one person stacking a rock and the other person removing it.

Temples are symbolic. My advice to anyone out there is to keep it in perspective. For what it is. Not what this lesson suggests it is.

[Anonymous]

There’s that. If you found a way to build a pyramid with a goat (no offense to your ex) for all those years imagine how big your muscles got and how prepared you were for when it came time to build a pyramid with a sheep. We build on our past, there’s never wasted effort… just don’t get too soft in your new marriage.

[Anonymous]

We had an excellent discussion In Dec. 2010 about patterns vs. formulas and how they get conflated too often. It is worth revisiting.

Here is the link:

http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2090&hilit=Formulas

[Anonymous]

nibbler, Thanks for starting this thread. I really love your approach.

I’ve been thinking lately about the emphasis on the temple, and – this isn’t poetic or scholarly – I think it’s just too much. Too many unrealistic expectations that are often unmet and breed bitterness, too many unrealistic requirements that require us to judge each other so harshly, too many other beautiful avenues left unexplored at church because it’s nearly all we talk about. If we could just put it back in some kind of reasonable proportion or place.

I was just in a meeting where someone said that the purpose of girls’ camp and scout camp is to lead kids to the temple. When it gets boiled down like that, all the flavor of the experience is gone.

I still love the temple in many ways. Lately, though, I really feel fed on the Sabbath, the “temple in time.”

[Anonymous]

For me, I think the church focuses on the temple and temple-worthiness because of the unstated requirements that go with it. They don’t have to lecture people on tithing. The lesson can just be on Temple Worthiness. No more lectures on Following the Prophet. Just talk about the importance of a Temple Recommend.

Focusing on the temple and making people feel that they are spiritually and religiously weak and lacking if they do not attend allows the church to make sure so many other bases are covered. “Temple Worthy” has so many sub-texts and sub-plots.

There is heavy baggage around temple ordinances, marital issues and divorce. More talk about temples can add huge stress to relationships.

What ever happened to talking about the importance of following CHRIST!!?!!

[Anonymous]

AP, I agree. Temple worthy allows for them to avoid some discussions. I remember being told to check TR for a relative doing baptisms or confirmations of children in our ward. As long as they had that TR, bishop was fine. If they didn’t they needed an interview with the bishop before doing the ordinance. That was the way the bishop did his duty to oversee ordinances.

[Anonymous]

I remember in a priesthood meeting the teacher asking what the word “Panacea” meant. I explained that panacea means a “cure all” and is almost always used in the context that such and such is not a panacea lest people get unrealistic expectations. The teacher thanked me and then proceeded to read the passage from the manual where the President of the church calls the gospel a panacea for all the worlds troubles.

It was a little awkward moment. Now I suppose that if everyone followed the gospel perfectly then many of the problems of the world might be solved. If … only … we could … Restrict people’s agency into doing what we know is best for them 💡 ….. 😈

[Anonymous]

Love it, Roy. The little moments are priceless. 😈

[Author]

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