My next lesson: The blessings of the temple

[startpoor]

To be fair on the flip side, I love Fiona Givens suggestion of encouraging people who have never attended the temple to attend some Catholic Masses, both are rituals in symbolism. Complete with kneelings, standings, hand wavings, and group prayers. Another point you could bring up is temple grounds. Even thought I too haven't gone in for a long time, there is a beauty, serenity, joy, calm on the outside. I recently drove past ours in the car, and just looking at it briefly was calming and happify-ing to me.

You will do great. We are all cheering for you.

Thanks for the idea from FG, that is a great insight, I'm going to see if I can find where she said that.

Thanks also for all your stories both positive and negative for the temple experience. I want the lesson to be for both groups whether explicitly exploring both sides or not. It's good to keep those in mind while preparing, and making a lesson that will appeal to both camps.
My experience was pretty neutral. I just accepted it out of obedience. I have had insights into the cosmos and creation both pre and post FC. I have also had times where I felt I was wasting an afternoon.


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[mom3]

FG, that is a great insight, I'm going to see if I can find where she said that

Check with DBMormon, I believe it is in his podcast with them.

[FaithfulSkeptic]

A woman in our ward has been a new member for a few years now. She was recently endowed and came to church the next day with a look of horror and bewilderment. It was as though the church she had known now looked so strange and foreign to her.

That was my experience too. I haven't found joy in attending the temple since, except on my wedding day and baptizing my kids there. I really don't have the desire to attend at all right now (and I haven't for several months). But my TBM DW loves the temple. I don't want to go, but I don't want to stop her from going, either. What's the best way to navigate this conflict? When I go just to please her, it makes me resent going even more. But I know it really bothers her that I don't want to go.

[startpoor]

A woman in our ward has been a new member for a few years now. She was recently endowed and came to church the next day with a look of horror and bewilderment. It was as though the church she had known now looked so strange and foreign to her.

That was my experience too. I haven't found joy in attending the temple since, except on my wedding day and baptizing my kids there. I really don't have the desire to attend at all right now (and I haven't for several months). But my TBM DW loves the temple. I don't want to go, but I don't want to stop her from going, either. What's the best way to navigate this conflict? When I go just to please her, it makes me resent going even more. But I know it really bothers her that I don't want to go.

I tried to go for my wife, but she didn't like doing with someone who didn't want to be there. I at least try to support her in going--even though it's just giving her a ride and watching the kids. When she does go, she usually comes back clear minded and refreshed, and has a softened attitude toward me. I don't know your particular marriage situation, but my advice would be to see it as an act of charity, and see if that helps quell the resentment. Maybe do something other than endowments too? I have tried lots of different approaches in my marriage and most have failed. But the things that have worked have been support and knowing when to hold my tongue.


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[SilentDawning]

I am like you in that I never really enjoyed going to the temple. The necessity of following prescribed actions on pain of being called out was particularly difficult for me, as was being a veil worker. I went once and never went back again as a veil worker. And the temple actually hurt my non-member family, and my life when they couldn't go in. This would be a hard lesson for me to teach.

However, always up for a teaching challenge, I might have groups reflect on blessings of the temple in certain categories:

Social benefits
Eternal benefits
Goal-oriented benefits

Other categories that come to mind, and then have them share them. Another technique I've used is have everyone brainstorm in groups, and then have them share the benefits. I have three, unlabelled columns on the board, and as they make the comments, I sort them into the categories above. It creates a kind of suspension about what the columns mean, which can be engaging. Then you unveil what your sorting means, and it all makes sense to the class. Try it -- it works very well.

You could also focus on the peace benefits of the celestial room, or how it can be cleansing to someone, as washings and annointing can have that effect. They did with myself....

[hawkgrrrl]

My two favorite things to talk about with the temple: 1) when I was living in Asia we went to a LOT of temples from various faiths, and they all had certain characteristics in common such as a cleansing area, a holiest area, and steps you take to progress and show proper respect to the deity, thresholds you cross, and so on, 2) I have been reading Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and the temple is very much like the Hero's Journey. We take ordinary people and expose them to not-of-this-world ideas in an other-worldly setting. There are a lot of interesting parallels in all world myth-making because it speaks to the soul and it is the story of spiritual awakening, finding the hero within each of us. Anyway, those are two universalizing angles I like to take about the temple.