Guest Post: By Show of Hands

[image error]I taught a Relief Society lesson recently on the importance of temples and temple work. Usually I can figure out a way to approach a topic that I feel good about, but in this case I came up against a wall of hypocrisy so high, I couldn’t see any way over or around it. I didn’t know whether to try to find a sub, or just ignore the assigned topic and teach something else, asking forgiveness rather than permission if the presidency was unhappy. I stewed about it for weeks. Eventually, I tried praying for some direction on how—or whether—I should approach it.

I always pray before I prepare a lesson. I want to be inspired to know what’s most important, what will benefit the specific women in our group, and if I might have a unique slant to explore that could open us all to a larger perspective or broader understanding. These prayers usually help, and in this case did. Although the answer wasn’t really what I was hoping for, or expecting.

It occurred to me that perhaps I should approach the lesson on temple work as my whole and honest self, acknowledging my struggle with the subject openly. I felt the distinct impression I’m not the only one facing the challenge.

So I prepared accordingly, showed up with an extra dose of nerves (and a large bag of candy bars), took a deep breath, and started my lesson by saying, “I have to teach this lesson, but I also have to be honest. I really struggle with the temple. Attending is extremely difficult for me. I have a recommend that’s going to expire, and I haven’t used it once except to buy garments at the distribution center.”

Some of the women in the room looked a little shocked, some more amused, but I sensed they were interested.

I explained that I needed a real discussion about the temple, and I had just fired the first volley by offering my own sordid truth—that I hardly ever go. I reiterated that attending the temple is not peaceful for me. That my difficulty is personal, evolving, and complicated, but that I also feel sure I’m not alone.

Then I referenced a recent BYU devotional by Eric Huntsman, “Hard Sayings and Safe Spaces,” in which he urged us to create “…environments that are, on the one hand, places of faith where we can seek and nurture testimony, but are also, on the other, places where our sisters and brothers can safely question, seek understanding, and share their pain.”

Shouldn’t Relief Society be just such a space? Why would we gather to discuss the gospel if not in an attempt to help each other figure out ways we can actually apply it to our messy lives?

I explained that I believe real dialogue begins when we move beyond the usual conversation points, the polite niceties that we are expected to offer as answers in church, and so faithfully do. To really talk about the temple, we’d need to expose our beliefs, our questions, our faith, our personal experiences, our testimonies, our struggles, our individual minds, and deeply guarded hearts.

They looked nervous.

I suggested that there are probably a lot of people who struggle with the temple but never say a word about it. There are plenty of plain, easy to understand reasons why this would be so.

The sealing ordinance gets right at the heart of what our work is meant to be about within our families. But because that occurs in the temple, it also creates one of those places where the rubber really hits the road in Mormonism. There are specific rules governing everything about the temple, there is much that can be confusing or unclear, we’re unable to discuss it widely like we do other things, it can feel like a very isolating worship experience, and for these reasons we tend to just sit with our questions or discomfort. Sometimes for a whole lifetime. Yet the temple is Mormonism’s Ultimate Big Deal. The stakes are high. The stakes are also high in everything surrounding family, both the ideal we hold up in church every week and the ones we are born into, or create and then live with.

There’s nothing like feeling you can’t talk about it to give a thing the wrong kind of power.

In the talk I was assigned to use, Elder Renlund said something I saw as just the opening I needed to begin an honest, robust discussion of the temple and our experiences with it. He said, “Family relationships can be some of the most rewarding yet challenging experiences we encounter. Many of us have faced a fracture of some sort within our families.”

I suggested that perhaps we should begin by getting a snapshot of the room, so I asked these questions, and requested that people raise their hands:

—Who has something that could be described as a “fracture” somewhere within their family?

—Who has someone who isn’t eligible to attend the temple?

—Who has someone who hasn’t experienced the sealing ordinance?

—Who has someone who is not a member of the Church?

—Who has someone who has left the Church?

—Who has someone with whom their relationship is difficult?

—Who has someone who identifies as LGBT+?

—Who has divorce in their family?

—Who has someone with a sealing that creates a sticky situation we trust will be sorted out later by someone smarter than we are?

—Who has polygamy in their family?

—Who doesn’t fully understand all the implications of the sealing ordinance, as it pertains to what our next life will look like?

—Who has questions about any part of their temple experience?

—Who’s felt sadness because they or someone close to them was excluded from participation in an important family experience or event because it involved the temple?

—Who’s experienced any kind of pain in association with the temple?

The answer, apparently, is pretty much everyone. Almost without exception, all hands were up. I figured they would be, if people were willing to be honest at all. What I didn’t expect was that there would already be eyes full of tears.

That took me by surprise, because I thought I might have to work hard to break through the barrier that protects and prohibits us from talking honestly about this revered centerpiece of our Mormon experience. I expected I would have to beg for an honest temple discussion. Instead, their eyes were begging me.

It could be I’m not the only one who’s finally ready to talk at church. Ready to do the real work of connecting the dots from a gospel of ideal principles to myself and my life. Those few honest questions at the start of a lesson sort of broke the room open in one of the loveliest ways I’ve ever experienced as a teacher. It leads me to believe that if Mormons will ever get comfortable being our whole, honest selves with each other, it could transform the Church and teach us the gospel of Jesus Christ in a more real way than any curriculum ever will.

Susan Meredith Hinckley is an AZ artist/writer who loves desert living, running, unanswerable questions, wind in her hair, and a bit of green chile in everything else.