Exponent II's Blog, page 227

Guest Post: Why Is “Preside” in the New Sealing Ceremony?

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[Photo: Oscar Wilde, “An Ideal Husband”]

By Emily Belanger

When I heard about the changes to the language of temple ceremonies, I made plans to attend as soon as possible. Curious, with only a vague sense of what to expect, I made the 3-hour trip with family members.

There were positive changes in both the Endowment and Initiatory, to the point that I longed for a do-over. The “hearken to the counsel of your husband” covenant had taken me by surprise when I received my own Endowment, and it hadn’t helped that I was only given a split second to decide whether to agree or make a scene by refusing. The only way I could handle it in the moment was to add a mental qualifier in my silent conversation with God: “Only if my future husband is equally obligated to hearken to my counsel.” With the new language, I feel like that prayer has been answered.

So yes, hearing for myself that the covenant is indeed gone was a healing balm. I’m grateful for the change and even more grateful that God softened the hearts of the men capable of making that change, giving them the humility to change something they may not personally object to and the confidence to challenge more than a century of tradition.

And yet, when I participated in a proxy sealing, that healing balm lost a good part of its power. As I’d heard, a bride no longer gives herself to her groom. Like the groom, she receives her spouse, and that change makes the ceremony feel egalitarian. But the uneven giving/receiving was subtle compared to a new addition: the groom now covenants to preside over his family.

Honestly, I can’t decide which version troubles me more. I didn’t notice the giving/receiving disparity during my own wedding (it was the first temple wedding I’d ever attended), and if I had noticed I don’t know what I would have said.

But there’s no missing this new covenant, which takes a word that’s already outdated and hammers it home in the highest ordinance that any member of the Church can receive. It helps that the bride doesn’t covenant to follow, but if I were engaged today and faced the choice between marrying outside the temple or having that word in my new husband’s covenants, I’m still not sure what I’d choose.

Oddly, it almost seems like the Brethren are uncomfortable with that word as well, given how far they went out of their way to modify it in the vows. Husbands promise to preside “with gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned.” Given those words, I honestly believe that they were trying to communicate something other than “The husband is in charge.”

But no matter how many times we spin “preside” and insist it’s a part of equal partnership in marriage or that presiding in a marriage doesn’t mean the husband is in charge, we go to church week after week and see in our Sacrament Meeting program that the man who presides over the meeting is the man who’s highest in the Church totem pole. To see how fathers presiding in the home was originally taught in the Church, we don’t have to look too far into the past. Some of the recent examples I linked above both insist presiding is part of an equal partnership and imply that the father governs the entire family.

Even today, look in any dictionary, and you’ll find a definition that reinforces an authoritative understanding of the term:

Cambridge Dictionary

to be in charge of or to control a meeting or event

Merriam Webster

1: to exercise guidance, direction, or control

2a: to occupy the place of authority : act as president, chairman, or moderator

b: to occupy a position similar to that of a president or chairman

Oxford Dictionaries:

Be in the position of authority in a meeting or other gathering.

MacMillan Dictionary:

to be in charge of an official meeting, ceremony, or other event

The consensus is painfully clear: the person who presides is in charge of whatever or whomever they preside over. And that is the exact meaning the Church once used in reference to fathers. The reason we teach that husbands “preside” is because the Church once openly taught that husbands were in charge of their families. It’s the same reason the directory software still lists my husband as the head of the household and the reason that home teachers and missionaries visit us for the first time and make the mistake of inviting my husband to call on someone to say the prayer.

Yet the Gospel teaches that spouses should work together in an equal partnership. That they have equal authority in the decision-making process. In short, the Gospel teaches that husband and wife are co-presiders over their family, if we’re using the definition of “preside” that every reputable dictionary uses. So why do we cling to the term “fathers preside” when it’s not at all what we mean? Perhaps today’s leaders are clinging to tradition. But why not just admit we see marriage more clearly today than we did several decades ago, thanks to the miracle of modern revelation?

We spent decades pretending that “hearken” meant “obey” in every context other than marriage. That game of pretend caused immense pain. How long will we pretend that “preside” doesn’t really mean “preside”?

It’s high time we cast off the false language of our fathers.

Notes:

A few of the dictionaries I cited also list definitions relating to music, but that’s clearly not what the Church is talking about when they say that husbands preside over their family.

Yes, I do mean to say “the false language of our fathers.” The mothers of Mormonism have never had a chance to shape the temple language.

I took a course from Brent Barlow (one of the linked authors above) in the early 2000’s. For what it’s worth, he candidly admitted that he had previously been mistaken in his belief that the husband made all final decisions in the marriage. He even chastised male students who refused to marry a woman who wanted to work outside the home.

The temple is sacred and a sensitive topic to most members of the Church, so in this piece I have shared no current quotes from the Endowment ceremony and have made no allusions to any information that the ceremony instructs members not to repeat. I think sealing language is a different matter and something that prospective brides and grooms should know ahead of time.

 

Emily received an MFA in Creative Writing from Brigham Young University in 2012. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia.

Guest Post: As We Unveil Our Sacred Injuries

[image error]By Sister Taylor

More prominent MoFems than myself have written some initial responses to the changes in the temple endowment ceremony. There’s a prevailing theme of conditional relief—relief that future women will be spared some of the hurt we’ve born for years—but also a mix of sorrow and frustration as we remember being told how that very pain was divinely ordained. I’ve seen elegant and raw expressions of disillusionment and indignation. Some of us were chastised for wanting these changes long before our Holy Men signed them into scripture a few days ago.

Like others, I worry that in failing/refusing/forbidding explanation of why these changes are made, all the pain and history and damage and work that preceded today will be swept under the rug and discounted. I, too, fear that I already know how this will go based on the lifting of the Priesthood Ban: the faithful accept the changes and praise the prophet for modern revelation; ultra-orthodox members get a whiff of our lamentations and declare that there’s just no pleasing liberals; there’s never a wider discussion of how the “old version” of things was wrong and hurtful.

Even if it’s a “too little too late” gesture, it feels historic. I wish I could put everyone’s personal stories and reactions in a book, so I could share it with the LDS family and friends who thought it was normal to blindside a young convert with the old endowment ceremony, and then the sealing.

And then I want to share that book with the orthodox friends (who I still want to love) who accompanied this convert through my first endowment ceremony. They sat there beaming at me when the temple worker (as Peter) stood silently and pantomimed the beginning of the ceremony. Surrounded by a sea of calm faces, I felt like I was the crazy one for panicking as “he” announced that it was my last chance to stand and leave or else face God’s implied wrath if I ended up reneging on the still-unspoken-at-this-point covenants. As this was the lead up to my wedding day, I was effectively being asked to choose between 1) walking away from my wedding and maybe my fiancé, or 2) agreeing to sign my soul over to whatever lay behind the huge curtain at the front of the room.

Alarm bells went off over and over, but I’d look at those friends’ faces and at my fiancé’s face, and I received conspiratorially proud smiles (“You’re finally in the club now!”) or, intermittently, the benignly bored looks of commuters on a long train ride. Their expressions certainly didn’t approach anything resembling “reassurance” they might think I needed. Why would I need reassurance on this, the happy day of my Mormon bat mitzvah?

Meanwhile, I felt like a fish who took a field trip onto dry land with amphibious friends. “This isn’t hurting them? Why can they breathe here? I need to get back to the water–I need to get back to the water! Where is the water?!” I kept hoping that there was relief somewhere up ahead, but instead for 2 hours I was asked to hand spiritual blank checks to an alien God, the Church, and my future husband (who also seemed to think all of this was as ordinary as a summer breeze).

I want to share that book with the Bishop who advised me to keep going “but next time don’t think too much; just enjoy it.” Well-meaning mentors implied that “understanding” would eventually just come to me as I attended, as if I were a pre-pubescent girl endearingly inquiring how to get my first period. For, evidently, one day I would naturally “get” how to feel all the peaceful things others described while offering obedience to my husband and my church rather than directly to my God.

I want to share it with the temple workers who wouldn’t answer my distressed questions about garments and covenants and scriptures that refuted things I was hearing in the temple. I urgently wanted to understand and be at ease and keep believing.

I want to share it with the in-laws who were so pleased with the “beautiful” sealing ceremony in which I solidified their son/brother/nephew/grandson’s spiritual authority over me for eternity—the in-laws who were patronizingly oblivious to the gut-wrenching pain this was causing a few floors below. My family drove and flew to Utah from all across the country so they could sit in a waiting room full of LDS kids who were merely too young to attend their families’ ceremonies.

I want to share it with the temple workers who acted like it was a normal wedding day activity to be shoved into the “Bride’s Room” to get ready, only to find 10 other brides and their mothers tripping over each other so everyone can keep the sealing schedule on time. I want to share it with them and ask why we were being rushed into the holiest ceremony of our eternal existence.

And I want them all to know that I am all at once heart-broken and happy that my family wasn’t in there. Because I don’t know what would have been more crushing for my fiercely proud forebears: not being there for my wedding or witnessing a ceremony in which their beloved sister/daughter/niece/granddaughter was treated to the honor of being named Sister Taylor (#1 implied) and promised the gift of being an eternal priestess to her god-husband if she behaves well. But given that none of them are beholden to the cultural taboos, the latter scenario might have actually ended with several of my female relations staging an impromptu rebellion and hauling me out of there, white dress, apron, and all.

I want to go back in time and read such a collection of stories to myself as a young newlywed, who cried into a pillow on the floor next to her marriage bed so she could keep her anomalous grief and doubts to herself. How could I love my husband so much and not be able to discuss this pain with him?

I don’t know what use it would serve, but there are people I want to introduce to my pain from those days, and every other time I struggled through the temple. I don’t want people to sweep me under the rug with the old temple ceremony. And it would seem others feel the same.

So, regardless of how official historians end up describing this change, let us remember it as a time when we unveiled our sacred injuries to one another—free to feel relief, and sadness, and anger, and everything else. Your stories are all written on my heart, and I rejoice with those who feel some relief, and sit with those whose wounds lay open still.

Guest Post: Temple Changes and Contributing to the Process of Revelation

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By Miriam Sweeney

I’ve worked for the Church as a writer, researcher, and actor. Anytime my teams produced any kind of content—whether we were filming a quick Deseret Industries commercial or writing new material for church curricula—we would be careful to either craft it to meet Correlation standards or frame it in a way that it wouldn’t have to pass by Correlation at all. Correlation was that nitpicky entity that prevented us from completing our projects. Which, in fairness, was entirely unfair. The Correlation Research Division has the all-important role of ensuring the doctrinal accuracy of anything and everything the Church puts out, and I’m sure we’re all grateful that we have gatekeepers to stall doctrinal sloppiness. But however well-meaning and necessary it is, Correlation tends to have the reputation for being a bureaucratic barrier to progress.

And yet, it apparently played a pivotal role in bringing about the 2019 changes to the temple ceremony.

It was the Correlation Research Division of the Church that distributed emailed surveys in the fall of 2018 to active members of the Church who had not attended the temple in a year in order to ask them about their experience. A research division of the Church struck out to investigate why some people feel they are unwelcome in the House of the Lord. Now, just a handful of months later, those blessed participants’ candid responses have led to changes in the temple ceremony that truly emphasize the reality of our divine nature as sons and daughters of God. And, whether all this started with this outreach or this outreach was merely a step in the process, this outreach happened. Our leaders wanted to better understand our lived experiences in order to make informed decisions about how to lead the Church.

So how do they get to call it revelation?

Let’s bring Moses into this conversation. Moses began life in a dramatic way. His escape from the death penalty for Hebrew babies, adoption by the daughter of Pharaoh, and subsequent nursing at his own mother’s breast were miraculous, but they were also the result of the careful orchestration of his mother and clever sister, Miriam. These experiences didn’t set Moses apart as a prophet. According to our account in Exodus, the first event in Moses’s life that was both dramatic and divine was his interaction with a burning bush. From that interaction with Deity, Moses received direct revelation and clear instructions. His first revelation came to him literally ablaze in glory.

Moses belongs in this discussion because of how ridiculously abnormal this form of revelation was and still is. The burning bush was bright, was undeniable, and man, does it make for a cinematic experience. But it’s not the method of communication that God typically uses. In fact, God has explicitly asked us to expect to receive knowledge “line upon line, precept upon precept.” We have been told to “study it out in [our] mind” when we have a question before even petitioning Him. Recent counsel from church leaders has compared the styles of revelation to the sudden flipping of a light switch and the gradual rising of the sun. If we are subject to these processes of gaining knowledge from the Lord, then why wouldn’t our leaders be, too?

Moses essentially wandered into his miraculous experience on Mount Horeb. But that doesn’t seem to be the pattern for common revelation. If we are to study out our ideas before coming to the Lord with questions, then common revelation must be dependent on having ideas to study out in the first place. Common revelation requires context.

Perhaps hearing that some people were uncomfortable with elements of the temple endowment was the impetus for the leaders of the LDS Church to begin to study it out—which, in their case, meant gathering context through surveys and interviews from disenchanted saints through the Correlation Division. Perhaps common, non-bush-burning revelation is a mundane process that combines learning and seeking confirmation.

It is not my nor anyone’s place to dictate how individuals should feel about recent changes to the temple ceremonies. But may I suggest these changes have indirectly shed light on the process of revelation? Revelation is rarely a bush aflame; often, it seems to be the result of studied, informed effort accompanied by a quiet confirmation from divinity that we’re on the right track. And if that’s true even for the leaders of God’s kingdom on earth, then how great must our responsibility be to speak up about our own experiences. I’d like to kiss the palms of every person who participated in that survey that lead to the revelation of the current temple changes. Our perspectives matter, and it may just be our responsibility to contribute to the process of revelation by sharing them.

—

Miriam lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she’s always looking for excuses to talk and write about theology, human communication, social policy, and social impact entrepreneurship.

 

Guest Post: Painful Vows and Empty Promises

[image error]by Charlotte Wild

In June of 2009, I knelt across an alter in a Salt Lake City Temple sealing room. I was staring into the face of my one and only. My best friend. My soon to be husband. Tears were streaming down my face because I was so thrilled to finally be marrying this wonderful man. I was glowing and I thought that my heart would burst from happiness. I could see in my fiancé’s eyes that same happiness.

Before going to the temple for the first time, someone told me that I wouldn’t be able to remember everything that I heard and saw on my wedding day and so I should plan on going back again and again to remember the happiest day of my life. To prepare for that big day, I took temple prep classes. The classes felt like every other class in the church that I’d taken. Nothing new was covered but instead I heard lessons that I’d had for years. “The temple ceremony is full of symbols.” “Let’s draw out the plan of salvation on the board.” “You will wear white clothing.” “You have to be worthy to enter.”

In these classes, the teachers never mentioned the vows that I would hear on the day that I got married. The words to everything are “sacred, not secret”, which basically amounts to the same thing. I knew that I would make promises and so would my husband. But it bothered me that I wouldn’t know what all those promises were until I was already in the room, in front of all our friends and family.

But, I felt like I knew one thing for sure. I had been taught my whole life, what made my wedding vows special was, instead of “til death do we part”, I would promise, “for time and all eternity”. And that is what I wanted dearly. I wanted to be married to my sweetheart for time and all eternity. I wanted him to be mine forever.

Staring into this great man’s eyes across the alter, I let all the words of the officiator  performing the ordinance wash over me and only took in the familiar phrase, “for time and all eternity.” My dearest wish. A promise to be fulfilled by a loving Father in Heaven. I felt like a portion of my patriarchal blessing, received years before, had been fulfilled. “There will be a time when you seek a mate and I bless you that this individual… will take you to the house of our Heavenly Father and there be sealed for time and all eternity. This is a great responsibility as you give yourself to your companion as he in turn gives himself to you.”

My husband and I went to the temple infrequently after we got married. We felt guilty that we lived so close to a temple and yet always seemed busy. After doing several endowment sessions, I started to notice things that bothered me. Wording that seemed one sided. And also, now that I was an “endowed member”, other women who noticed these same things wanted to talk to me about them.

“Do you think the temple ceremony is sexist?”

I learned that this question could be a trap. Some women would ask it because they wanted to confide in me their doubts and concerns about some promises that they made in the temple. But other women wanted to find out if I was “one of those women”, women who might be….feminist.

I wanted to try harder to find strength and peace and comfort in the temple endowment. I made goals of how often I wanted to attend. And sometimes, I did find strength and peace and comfort in the ceremony. I felt strength from a loving Heavenly Father. I felt peace in this quiet and beautiful place. I felt comfort hearing about the plan of salvation.

But I also felt pain and confusion.

I decided that instead of doing endowment ceremonies, I would try sealings, temple weddings for people who never had the opportunity to get married in the temple. For a long time, I loved those. I would look at my husband across the alter like I had on the happiest day of my life.

Then I heard someone point out how even the language in that ceremony were unequal. A man promises to “receive” the woman. The woman promises to “give” herself to her husband. I had never absorbed those words while I was listening to the officiator saying them. I asked within myself, “Is that really what they say? Why haven’t I noticed?” I didn’t want to believe that the inequality extended to my marriage vows.

I soon attended a dear friend’s wedding, and I listened carefully to the words. “…receive her unto yourself to be your lawful and wedded wife…” “…give yourself to be his lawful and wedded wife…”

My heart hurt. I felt sick. Our perfect and beautiful wedding day. Our promises. The promise that I thought that Heavenly Father had given in my patriarchal blessing. “…as you give yourself to your companion as he is turn gives himself to you.”

But he didn’t. My sweetheart didn’t give himself to me. He was not required to give himself to me. He received me like a gift but I was given no such reciprocal promise.

My heart hurt realizing that my special patriarchal blessing was never going to be fulfilled. Not in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and not in the temple.

A short while later, in an Institute class, we were studying Church History and the teacher told us that the following week we would be learning about polygamy. In preparation, I opened my scriptures to section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. As I read about “the new and everlasting covenant”, I realized that that meant “plural marriage” in these scriptures. It said it in the heading of the chapter. But that couldn’t have been right. I had always learned that ” the new and everlasting covenant” simply meant “marriage in the temple”.

My mind reeled and wrestled with itself. That couldn’t be right. What about our vows on the day I was married?

He had promised:

“…receive her unto yourself to be your lawful and wedded wife for time and all eternity with a covenant and promise that you will observe and keep all the laws, rites and ordinances pertaining to this holy order of matrimony in the new and everlasting covenant…(emphasis added)”

Then I had promised:

“…give yourself to him to be his lawful and wedded wife and for him to be your lawful and wedded husband for time and all eternity, with a covenant and promise that you will observe and keep all the laws, rites and ordinances pertaining to this holy order of matrimony in the new and everlasting covenant…(emphasis added)”

I had promised to keep all of the laws, rites and ordinances of this “new and everlasting covenant”. The covenant of plural marriage. The covenant of eternal polygamy.

On my wedding day, I promised to be a polygamist wife for time and for all eternity.

I felt sick. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry and cry and cry. Our perfect and beautiful wedding day. I had been so naive.

I promised myself that I would never go to the temple again. I couldn’t. I had been right to be worried about going into that building on my wedding day without knowing what promises I would be making.

Now, it’s the beginning of 2019 and I get word that the language through all the temple ordinances–initiatories, endowments, and sealings–have changed. The language has been changed to bring balance to the covenants made in the temple between genders. The word is that in the sealing ceremonies, both partners receive each other.

“…as you give yourself to your companion as he in turn gives himself to you…”, the words of the patriarch, from 15 years ago, come back to my mind. Questions swim in my mind, “Does this mean that my covenant changes retroactively? Is there a way to get sealed again with these new words?” But there are not answers to these questions because the prophet of the LDS Church is silent. These changes were supposed to be a secret from people like me.

Because, no matter what the answer is, it doesn’t truly matter to me now. I don’t want a temple marriage.

This summer, I will celebrate my 10th anniversary. My husband and I are planning on going out into the woods to be in the presence of the God and Goddess who created this world. I’m going to promise to give myself to my husband and he is going to promise to give himself to me.

Charlotte is a nature photographer, bird watcher, wife, and mother of two. She is still consciously uncoupling from the LDS Church.

Guest Post: The Unveiling

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By Caroline Crockett Brock

A veiled Mormon woman is the ultimate expression of the collective female energy allowed to operate in the LDS church today. The collective “one of us” that remains unknown and unrevealed to ourselves and others.

Sure, she can breathe, but not deeply.

She can talk, but not loudly.

She can act, but not independently.

LDS leaders can, with their benign patriarchy, announce that women will now be “unveiled”.

They can proclaim that 2019 will be the year she can finally access and follow God directly.

But will this change truly address the deep underlying dynamics of “spiritual foot binding” women face as members of a church made by men for men? Is this a glorious new revelation or a reversal of a false truth perpetuated through the generations until enough men and women left the church in protest of its pernicious spiritual effects?

Every soul can have deep communion with God. No veils. No husband to bring a wife through to God’s presence. None need permission, and in fact, the process of spiritual enlightenment was never meant to be done with intermediaries—husband, priest or otherwise. To claim this new change with anything other than a deep and sincere apology is disturbing and insulting.

The energetic veil on Mormon women will remain until women stop asking for permission from leaders to do the following:

—Explore what a relationship with both God the Mother and God the Father feels like (news flash: it doesn’t require handshakes or secret words).

—Experiment with giving blessings of healing on our children and others in need.

—Pronounce matriarchal blessings.

—Develop a voice and generate a unique will in alignment with our soul’s inherent gifts and abilities.

—Understand what it means to access deeper states of embodied existence and higher states of consciousness.

—Explore what feminine spirituality looks like (spoiler alert: it’s not what is modeled in the church).

—Cultivate the ability to ask seek and knock with the great and terrible questions—ones that surface from deepest parts of our souls rather than from curriculum manuals or general conference talks.

Until the normal, rank and file woman in this church can speak without seeking an apology or asking permission, act without first getting approval, and breathe as though she deserves to occupy as much space in this church as men do—the true, energetic veil remains.

What is “revealed” is that this all male leadership wants to unveil us so we can seem equal while they continue to author and manage their own version of female godliness, asking us to simply bow our heads and say “yes”.

If our response is anything but yes, we are often seen as being ungrateful or unfaithful, especially given the recent changes. There is a feeling by others that we are women who will never be satisfied. Yet true satisfaction comes when the soul experiences a ceremony that honors, respects and feeds a soul–expanding consciousness and awareness of the deeper aspects of this mortal experience.

My response to those wondering if I’ll come back to an “adjusted” ceremony is currently the following:

Until the story of Adam and Eve is portrayed as a multi-layered yet flawed myth, historically used to justify the domination of men over women, I will not be back.

Until we recognize that signs and tokens (special knowledge) will never get a soul to heaven, and their use in the temple is superfluous and arcane, I will not participate.

Until the serpent is re-installed as a symbol for divine wisdom and an invitation to greater consciousness, rather than Satan, it will continue to obfuscate the sacred process of enlightenment it seeks to teach, and I will not support the propagation of false truths.

Until men and women are taught that the wilderness is a beautiful and wild place where a soul strikes out and learns to generate her own will in harmony with love and truth, the ceremony will be diluted, polluted and unfulfilling.

Until we have the humility to recognize the entire ceremony (from initiatories, to endowment, sealings, prayer circles and temple prep) needs the other half of it (feminine spiritual truths and access points to God) to even begin to be workable rather than “adjustments” made by men, it will not serve my holy purposes or fulfill my desires.

It’s not that I’m hard to please, it’s that I’ve lived in the garden.

I’ve eaten the apple.

I’ve died the death of immature and unwhole truths I was so smugly certain of

I braved the wilderness, and built my own fleshy altars.

I have entertained messengers from the mother–messengers I repeatedly rebuffed because I had only been taught to value male-based spirituality.

I have lain in the cold dark nights in that wilderness, longing for the safety and innocence of the garden again, knowing I could not return.

And slowly, I learned to pray my own prayers–not in rote fashion with hands in the air, but with the vibrations of my soul. With embodied living–garment and veil free.

I have forged a new life in this wilderness, one that is driven by desires and abundance rather than duty and sacrifice.

Higher laws are not lived in the gardens of our ignorance and certainty.

Even if they asked me to officiate in the temple–to stand in front of the altar and direct the ceremony, I would not return.

In my experience, the Garden’s Gate only swings one way.

So, while men in Salt Lake are arranging focus groups and handing out surveys, while they are tabulating diminishing tithing slips and trying to understand the dynamics behind a business model-type religion whose customer base is quickly shrinking, Ones of Us are arising and emerging from the wilderness. Ones of Us are bringing holy offerings for all to partake. Ones of Us are modeling heretofore unknown ways of moving through this world as a woman.

Sisters, arise and unveil yourselves.

Leave the garden of immaturity, certainty and ignorance.

Draw in that primordial breath whose depth and breadth can pull the tides.

It’s time to knock the mallet on the door of your feminine soul and invite yourself in.

Ones of us are gathering.

 

Written by Caroline Crockett Brock. Mother. Wife. Writer. Goddess in Embryo.

Guest Post: Where Was My Crown?

[image error]by Anonymous

Beautiful golden crowns. That is the image burned into my heart when I think about temples. Or at least when I used to think about temples. My young women’s leader, a woman I respected and looked up to in every way, would use crowns as her most common temple motif. Over and over again through my time in the youth program she used crowns to demonstrate to us that when we went through the temple we could expect to become Queens unto the most high God. The temple was to be the pinnacle of my spiritual experience as a latter day saint in the church of Jesus Christ. I needed to safeguard my virtue to prove myself worthy to enter. I hated myself for any unclean thought that would come to my mind in my youth for fear that it would bar me from my crowning temple experience.

A lifetime of church attendance preceded my temple endowment. As a youth I spent four years in early morning seminary and weekly meetings in the young women program. This was followed by four years of religious studies at a church university where I would carry a variety of church callings. I thought I was ready.

I was ready to feel the awe and magnificence that would accompany my first temple experience. I was expecting my crowning moment of glory as I entered the temple with friends and family to receive my very own endowments.

But something was wrong. I didn’t feel magnificent. I couldn’t even feel the spirit at times. What was wrong with me? “You need to go back more often” I was told. “The Lord’s way is not man’s way”. “Don’t get distracted by the physical, look deeper with your spiritual eyes”.

So I dug deeper, searching for my crown. I must have missed it!

As it turned out I was not crowned to be a God in my own right as I was taught my entire life. I was to be “a priestess unto my husband”. I felt betrayed. Where was my queenly crown?

I had put my trust in my leaders and my family members. They had gone before me and made the same covenants. Why could I not be told what I was covenanting to, what I was promising, what I was resting my entire salvation on before I made those commitments? I was made to believe that if I gave my everything to God and to the church I would in return be made a Queen unto God. I was told through the redemptive power of Christ alone would my sins, not the sins of anyone else, be made clean. But that wasn’t the covenant I made when I went through the temple and took out my own endowments. I promised my all with full faith, but because of Eve’s transgression I would not be made a Queen unto God equal to my husband, instead I would be made a priestess unto my husband. My husband would become an intermediary between me and my salvation. My heart was broken and my testimony of the temple as well.

Upon hearing the news of changes being made in the temple my heart rejoices for the young women who will not have to go through the bait and switch that I went through. They will not have a golden crown dangled before them only to have it snatched away and replaced with a veil.

I am happy that now the temple, the highest form of worship within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints, will no longer undermine the atonement of the Savior by requiring husbands in the redemption of their wives. I am still heartbroken that such a profound doctrinal change can be made in secret.

Women are still being told they are not allowed to discuss the matters central to their own salvation. While the women who have been silently suffering for years are now given balm, these changes highlight the idea that the scope of their salvation remains at the mercy of male leadership. While I rejoice at the opportunity to take out covenant’s in proxy for other souls who have passed before me, I mourn for my lost opportunity to make those same covenants in my own name.

Guest Post: I Was Right

[image error]by Anonymous

Four and a half years ago I delved into the temple. I had been endowed for more than twelve years at that point. Aspects had bothered me since my first time through as an adult, but I continually chalked it up to my own lack of understanding or spiritual maturity. I had been promised my entire life that the temple was the highest, holiest place of worship, the place I would feel the closest to God, learn about my role in His plan and the eternities, and receive personal revelation. While personal revelation had and still remains a constant of my experiences there, while I have consistently felt close to God and the divinity that is there, it also became one of the most painful, confusing places of my spiritual life.

I decided to attend weekly that summer. I wrote down specific questions, hoping for specific answers. Most of them centered on the sexism I finally acknowledged there, thinking that if I started by admitting what were surely my own immature, weak thoughts, then eventually I could work through them and get to the deeper, true meanings of the rituals and wording.

During one of my weekly visits I was sitting in an instruction room, waiting to go through the veil into the celestial room. I was overcome with the wrongness of certain parts of the ceremony I had just participated in. My eyes felt opened for the first time. I sat there looking around me at the room full of people going along with everything, just as I always had, shocked at what we were doing. I knew the sexist parts were sexist, and wrong. And I was mortified to be admitting this in God’s house. I expected to feel shame at my realization, or distanced from God for my weakness. Surely I was wrong, I was the problem, I still didn’t have enough knowledge or faith to understand this. Instead, I was immediately overcome with a warm feeling of love and strength from God, telling me He loved me completely and wholly. I pleaded for answers, for the light and knowledge I had been seeking to flood my mind and bring clarity and fix my thoughts. I had nothing come. Just the feeling of complete love.

At the end of the summer, I came away with no answers for my questions about the sexism. I stopped attending weekly as it was getting harder to attend. I still attended monthly as I always had, but each time, certain parts of the endowment hurt me more and more, eventually causing shaking hands when I had to raise my hand, and panic attacks resulting in intense sweating, heart racing, and the need for deep breathing during “those parts.” About a year ago I stopped doing endowment sessions and have only done initiatories and sealings. Both had sexist wording that bothered me too, but significantly less than the endowment, so I got to the point where I felt comfortable going through the motions of those parts while saying in my mind, “I don’t believe this part, it’s wrong.” I have had some of my most powerful spiritual experiences in the temple and come away feeling strengthened each time. That has never changed. But I had to get to the point where I could accept fault in the ceremony along with the divinity.

I brought my concerns up with three former bishops. One of them outright dismissed my concerns, the others listened and said we don’t have all the answers. I prefer acknowledgement of no answers to dismissal, but I did come away from those meetings with the impression that I was the one without the faith or knowledge to get answers and that they would come and it would all make sense some day. I eventually did get answers, that parts of the ceremonies were wrong. But I could never say that in church. I could never say that to other church members or family members unless I knew they also struggled.

Last week, the temple changed. I haven’t attended yet, but the reports I’ve heard are that women no longer covenant to hearken to their husbands, and we make the same exact covenants to God as our husbands. Those are the things I struggled with the most.

I was shocked that it happened. I prayed for it, wanted it so badly for so long and it finally happened. But I felt conflicted. It confirmed to me that all along, I was right, and the church was wrong. All the times I read or heard comments explaining the wording way, the messages implying answers would come if I had more faith and patience, knowing how that wording had enabled abusers even in my own family, hurt. How dare others tell me I was the one without enough faith. How dare they defend the church at all costs. How dare the church allow this to go on for so long. And how dare they change it without an explanation or apology. But that’s where we are at. And I’m so conflicted. So grateful for the changes, grateful that my sons, and especially my daughter, will have a better experience than I did. But I’m hurt. I will need time to heal. I don’t want to forgive right now but will have to eventually. And the moral of the story for me is to listen to the promptings I receive, not what others tell me I should think or believe.

#hearLDSwomen: The Temple Poses Challenges for Women

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A few years ago, I went to ward temple night. My divorce was about to be finalized, so I felt strongly that I needed to do sealings to refresh my memory on what the divorce would mean for my daughter. When I got to the sealing room, I was the only person not in a couple. I didn’t know any one else, but they were obviously paired off as husbands and wives. The sealer had everyone’s names on his desk, but he kept forgetting to add me to the rotation because I wasn’t there with a man. He changed everyone’s assignments based on moving the witnesses. Every time we finished a sheet he’d change things up, and I kept waiting for my turn to participate. One of the other women participating finally spoke up and asked, “What about her?” I was a complete mess by then, but I did get to do some sealings as a daughter before time was up. It broke me when I realized how invisible I was because I wasn’t there with a man. Aside from a handful of other very special, specific times—including my brother’s wedding a few weeks later—I haven’t returned to the temple. It had been my place of inspiration and refuge, even though I had to try really hard to look past all the sexism. When this happened to me, I was hurt and angry for being overlooked but also for losing my safe place.

– MB

 

When I was being interviewed by someone in the stake presidency a year ago so I could get my recommend for my sealing, this man that I had never met before (I get anxiety meeting alone with strange men for interviews and totally hate it, and I had been asked to come at night, too) started by asking how I felt about my now-husband still being sealed to his ex-wife. I was not expecting that question about personal feelings. He also rambled about how women come to him wanting a sealing cancellation and how he convinces them not to so that “they can still have blessings” like he was such a hero for not doing what women wished.

I was 36 at the time, had served a mission, and was fairly knowledgeable about procedures to get sealed, having helped a number of girlfriends over the years. He didn’t like that I knew all the answers and didn’t need his information about what was allowed in the temple. He kept trying to quiz me and find SOMETHING that I didn’t know. Asking the worthiness questions didn’t take up much time, but the rest did, far too much of my time late at night. When I finally could get out of there, I ran to my car at like 10 PM and cried all the way home. I don’t remember his face anymore, but I still hate his guts.

– Sarah

 

When I was an ordinance worker in 2017, the workers would meet in the chapel for a prayer meeting before the shift. At the end of the meeting, the female coordinator would go up to the podium and announce the confidential info (for that day) for the women. Both men and women were in the room when this information was given. Then, the women would be dismissed and leave the room, the doors to the chapel would close, and only men would be in the room, and then the men were told the confidential info for the men. I found this hard to deal with as an ordinance worker because I felt like the church didn’t trust the women. This (and several other things) made me feel as if female ordinance workers were secondary to male ordinance workers.

– Dani Addante

 

Pro Tip: Treat women like equals. Be aware that single women are often overlooked and do what you can to make sure they are included and have a place.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. Has anything like this happened to you? Please share in the comments or submit your experience(s) to participate in the series.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)

Another Perspective on the Temple Changes

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By Adia J. Olguin

As many know there have been some changes made to the temple ceremony recently. Generally the consensus has been that these changes have been long overdue and are a giant leap in the right direction. However, an observation that I have made is that while so many, women especially, are ecstatic about these changes, they are still dealing with pain in regards to the old practices.

As a black woman it’s been VERY interesting to watch everyone’s responses to the temple changes, to say the least. But there was something that I found so interesting. On more than one occasion someone mentioned not receiving an apology for the years of trauma. For no acknowledgement of the pain and suffering caused by the language of the temple, or the practices therein, etc. There has been discussion of how traumatizing the past procedures were, and how it is hurtful that these changes have not been acknowledged on a larger scale. That there’s been no apology, and how it does not erase the years, and in some cases decades, and even generations of hurt that was endured because of past practices. This brings us to a discussion of intersectionality. These feelings many are having are the same as what black members, particularly black women, have been feeling since day one as members of the church, but in regards to race and racism. But we’ve been told to move on, that there’s no racism now, etc.

For decades it was taught from the pulpit that black people were cursed. That they were unworthy. That they were inherently bad, and less than the white members. This has bled into the teachings in the members homes, how they approached missionary work and so forth. My own father began meeting with the missionaries in 1981, after the ban was lifted, but was told by the white, male missionaries, that he could get baptized, but wouldn’t really be able to progress, because he was black. He did not get baptized. Nor did my white mother. It was not until more than twenty years later that I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Shortly after I served my own mission, and was told by my zone leader how all the black people would be made white in Heaven, and also some choice thoughts on how affirmative action ruined America (even though the group that benefited most from affirmative action, was actually white women and not Black people, as many seem to think.) Now, more than a decade later, I have been called the Devil, and told how I was the worst member of my ward, any time I try to address the past and acknowledge the pain our our shared Latter-day Saint history.

My own personal history proves that while a a practice may change, that does not automatically change the hearts and minds of those that were taught otherwise for generations. That just as those hurtful doctrines were taught from the pulpit, the new procedures and doctrines need to be taught from the pulpit, and stressed, and explained why they were needed and important. A steady effort to heal the past has to take place, otherwise it will continue business as usual.

I invite you to think about the fact that even though this may feel like a step forward you are still able to feel hurt by the past, suffer repercussions from the past, and deal with people that will continue to maintain past language and practices despite the fact that changes have been made. Because that’s what it’s like for black members. Sure they lifted the priesthood ban in the 70s but each and every single black American member is still affected by those practices. Most of us have been told the same lies of how we’ll be white in heaven, or how we must have sinned in the pre-existence, etc. We are treated as outsiders and assumed investigators no matter how long we’ve been members. I have friends that have been temple workers, and have been questioned, INSIDE the temple, about whether or not they belong there. I have never gone to the Mesa Easter pageant, gone to the visitors center, and not been assumed to be an investigator. Every time I step into a new chapel, I am asked if I am investigator, and always get to witness the shock when I say that I am a member, especially if I’m moving into the ward. While not all black American saints experience what I have experienced, my observation has been, that the majority do.

Some of you may be thinking , but what about the Be One Celebration?! Let’s be clear. That happened because a group of black women organized an event honoring past, present, and future BLDS saints. And it was a success so they brought it to Utah. The brethren then hijacked the event and took minimal direction from the original organizers. Ignoring their ideas and suggestions and having the event on Brigham Young’s birthday. To top it off it was poorly advertised, and many people did not even know it was happening to begin with. That event wasn’t for us (us being black saints). For many of us we were happy to see some kind of representation, but still reminded of how no one really wants to address the church’s history of racism and exclusion towards black members, and how we can move forward and create space for all of Heavenly Father’s children.

I know many women feel that the past temple procedures, and videos, did not really represent them the way they feel they deserve to be represented. But for black saints, what we see is that white couples were still being represented. Also, I might add that when white women go to church, or the temple, they get to see themselves represented. Maybe it’s not exactly how you would like. But “your” faces are in the artwork. “Your” stories are in the lessons. Saints who aren’t white don’t have that same luxury. Which leaves saints of color, ESPECIALLY black saints, feeling that there’s no space for them. Not that there’s not enough, which is how white women feel, but there is no room for us, at all. There is no where that we belong. And this is why so many black members are the ONLY LDS person in their family, because so many do not want to intentionally subject themselves and their families to constantly being “the other”.

Anyways. As you’re discussing these changes and other ways that the church can be better, more inclusive, more respectful, more whatever, towards women, remember, the church hasn’t only wronged white women. The damage done by the church has been intersectional so your work to improve the church needs to be intersectional as well.

My eleven-year-old son and ordination to the LDS male-only priesthood

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Shortly after my son’s eleventh birthday, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) announced changes to the procedure for ordaining LDS boys to the priesthood. Instead of inviting male children to be ordained individually after their twelfth birthdays, they will ordain eleven-year-old boys en masse each January, starting this month.

I had always intended to be supportive of my son’s option to be ordained to the male-only LDS priesthood. I don’t want boys to miss out on opportunities for spiritual growth. I want this for my son. Wanting the same opportunities for girls and women has never made me wish for men and boys not to have access to these opportunities, but I thought I had another year to prepare my son to take on priesthood responsibilities and prepare myself for my child to exceed my rank in the church.

As a priesthood holder, my child will be ranked above me, his mother, in the official church hierarchy. That said, ever since 1908, when the LDS church started ordaining male children at age 12, the church has deviated from the scriptural priesthood assignments that were written at a time when priesthood holders were generally adults and instead given ordained boys more age-appropriate responsibilities. Since children and teenagers cannot reasonably be expected to “see that there is no iniquity in the church” or “see that all the members do their duty” (D&C 20:53-56), boys have been assigned distantly related activities such as preparing and passing the sacrament, although these activities are not listed as priesthood responsibilities in the scriptures. Meanwhile, adult women have been delegated many of the duties described as priesthood roles in scripture without being honored with priesthood titles.

This creates an unhealthy situation in which women have low status but much responsibility, while male children are given the impression that they are more special and important than the women who raised them. Women and girls have been banned from tasks that were originally gender neutral like passing the sacrament, reinforcing status for young boys while denying women and girls opportunities for spiritually enriching participation in ordinances. When boys reach adulthood, not only their titles but also their power in the church exceeds that of their mothers.

I want my son to appreciate the privilege of ordination, while also understanding the pain the inequity causes others who are not granted the same opportunity because of gendered rules. This is what I am saying to him:

I want this for you, but it’s your choice. The priesthood is a wonderful way to grow closer to God and serve others. I think you would be a good priesthood holder but the priesthood is a commitment and only you can decide if you should take on this responsibility. We were expecting you to have another year to prepare before ordination became an option for you. Although they have changed the rules so you can already be ordained at age eleven, you can still wait another year, or longer, if you are not ready.

The inequality matters. As a priesthood holder, you will have sacred opportunities that your sister and I are not allowed to have. At church, people will tell you that it doesn’t matter that girls are excluded. It’s not true. The ban on women in the priesthood in our church is unfair and makes many girls and women like me sad. I hope girls will have the priesthood someday, too. Please have empathy for those who don’t have the same privileges you do.

Don’t make it worse. When I was twelve, the deacons in my ward were bullies. At church they made fun of me and the other girls, threw spit wads at us and knocked over our chairs. In the neighborhood, they threw dirt clods at my house and teased my little brother. Their behavior made it even harder for me to watch them pass the sacrament while even the most Christ-like girls could not. In our family, we don’t believe in the excuse, “boys will be boys.” Regardless of whether you hold the priesthood, we will expect you to treat everyone with kindness and respect.