I have not been to the temple in about 30 years.
That will probably surprise many readers who know I am a believing Latter-day Saint, and one for whom genealogy and salvation for the dead are such important features of life and the gospel. But I want to give my perspective on some of the temple-related topics that have been so prominent in recent weeks because I haven’t seen anything that comes close to my perspective, and I don’t think I can write about it without being candid: I do not go to the temple.
This does not mean that I do not value the temple and all it stands for. The desire to go to the temple was one of the reasons I went on a mission – I can remember the moment it occurred to me that the one would lead to the other; I was walking across a parking lot near the Smith Field House on BYU campus. It was a wet day, but the finding of a solution to “how can I go to the temple?” when I wasn’t getting married in the foreseeable future (to that point, I had been on exactly one date, ever) made the day feel sunny and warm.
My mission was not what it could or should have been, but access to the temple went a long way toward making it worthwhile. I’m glad I went to the temple. My covenants were and are important to me. I believe in what is taught in the temple. I submit many, many well documented records of the deceased every year so that their ordinances can be done and so that you who do go to the temple regularly have that opportunity: although we’re encouraged to go to the temple frequently by appeals to how important it is to us individually, there is really no cause for returning to the temple if you aren’t performing ordinances for someone who needs your proxy assistance. I support the temple in every way of which I am capable.
And my more-than-reluctance to attend has nothing to do with the former unequal language and expectations. Perhaps those things would have disturbed me more if I’d thought about them, but I’ve never been able to get past what really bothers me to consider the problem of the language.
I was made uncomfortable as a single woman in the temple from the second time I went there, my first return to the temple after my own endowment, before I left for my mission. I did not know the conventions when I was approached by a worker outside the dressing room and invited to be a witness. He thought I was there as a young bride, and when I told him I was there as a young missionary, he was clearly uncomfortable – he didn’t want to dis-invite me, but his tone of voice when he said he would try to find someone willing to kneel with me let me know I was a complication for which there was no easy solution. And I could hardly take part in the prayer circle – the few times I stood, an ordinance worker had to beg for someone to stand with me; I always caused a delay, a delay that grew more embarrassing by the second until some old man, with obvious reluctance, stood. I stopped trying to be a full participant after a few such episodes.
I stopped going altogether when I could no longer avoid the conviction that the blessings of the temple were closed to me, that the Church, if possibly not God Himself, saw me as a failure and offered me not the slightest shred of an alternative purpose in life: I had and would have no husband to hearken to, could not fill the measure of my creation, and had no business seeking blessings for a non-existent posterity in time, if not in eternity. (Yes, there was always the possibility of post-mortal associations, but that has never seemed entirely certain to me: That oft-repeated assurance that “no blessing will be withheld blah blah blah” seems to have no solid basis beyond Lorenzo Snow’s unwillingness to accept the possibility that his sister Eliza, a righteous woman who had done so much for the Kingdom and who had been the wife of two prophets, could lack eternal increase when she had not borne children in mortality. That “doctrine” seemingly based on wishful thinking has been expanded and embroidered steadily ever since, until you now hear it applied to both men and women, explicitly relieved from any responsibility for refusing to make a less than ideal selection of marriage partner – but I have yet to find any satisfactory revealed or reasoned support for that assertion.)
Anyway. There has never been and seemingly never will be anyone waiting for me in the Celestial Room. Time after time, I would find myself, in effect, learning all I could, covenanting all I should, doing all I would to receive the welcome of the Lord, then passing from one sphere to another and finding myself a stranger, looking at couples very much together, but me standing alone with no reason to be there, or anywhere else for that matter.
Other single adults, both men and women, seem to find purpose and meaning in the temple, alone, but I couldn’t. I had to stop going. I have found no reason for going again – to go now, for the idle curiosity of seeing what changes have been made recently, seems very wrong to me.
Here might be a good point to insert something that I will probably repeat below: These are all questions I have wrestled with literally for decades. If you’re tempted to tell me how to resolve my longstanding difficulties after you have given it all of 12 seconds of thought, please don’t. You must see how presumptuous that would be, and potentially how offensive.
I’ve never seen this perspective voiced anywhere. It has never been brought up in any church discussion of which I have been a part – almost certainly because it doesn’t occur to married people, and the Church’s singles program, operated by married couples (!), exists primarily to throw single men and women together for potential mating, not to discuss and solve the special religious concerns of single adults.
Here are some more random temple-related thoughts that I have not seen in temple-related discussions:
1. I like the veil. I understand the objections women have expressed about the physical discomfort and the symbolism they reject – those are valid objections, but I don’t share them. I never feel comfortable in my own skin around other people, and instead of the veil being a barrier between God and me, it has been a refuge for me with God, a barrier between me and the strangers around me.
2. For that reason I want to be veiled for burial. When my mother stepped forward to veil my grandmother for her burial, I realized that she felt it was a special thing, the very last personal service she could render for her beloved mother. To say I “looked forward” to doing that for my mother when the time came would give the wrong connotation, but it was a sacred opportunity that I can never forget. And while there won’t be anyone who loves me in the same way to render that service for me, I still want it. So sue me.
3. I do want to be buried in my temple robes. I’m surprised by the numbers whom I’ve read recently saying they don’t want that for themselves, because I do want it. And that isn’t only because I haven’t bought a stitch of new clothing of any kind for four years – if I died today and had to be buried in something other than my temple robes, it would have to be some random rag from my closet with no meaning and no beauty. Rather, I want my robes because it’s how I want to face eternity: “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.”
4. While not temple-related, this is related to points 2 and 3: I do not want a funeral – more strongly, I want not to have a funeral. I hope someone is willing to dedicate my grave, and if anyone wants to sing a graveside hymn, that’s okay. At least it’s okay if you sing it up to tempo. No dirge-like hymns, please, even if this would be the one place a dirge would otherwise be acceptable! But if I were to have a funeral, I would welcome a sermon on some aspect of the Plan of Salvation. I’m a traditionalist that way, although I seem to be one of the last. Funerals should point the way the deceased has gone, and invite survivors to follow; funerals are among the few moments in our lives when our hearts are open to the Beyond in a serious way, as something other than the imagined continuation of 21st century middle class American life with your nuclear family.
I’m a traditionalist in most things related to the temple. That is, I am exceedingly uncomfortable with the way some speak of the temple, especially online where we don’t know who is listening or what they make of it. So please exercise great conservatism. Even what I’ve said here could make me uncomfortable at some other time – please let what I’ve discussed be the outer limit of what you say. I may edit your comment if you make me uncomfortable, especially if you aren’t a regular reader and contributor to Keepa.
And again, please don’t give me any personal advice or magic solutions to my difficulties. If you know me well enough to give advice, you’ll write personally. If you don’t know me that well, advice is not solicited. Thank you.
Ardis, this is a beautiful and honest message. Thanks.
I’m no regular, but I feel compelled to express my admiration. There is real courage in presenting—no, it’s more—being a problem for a community that you love without yielding on either front: loving the community or embodying the problem. Such dissonance will cause most people either to leave or to accede to the cultural incentives to self-erasure. I salute your choice to do neither.
I have never heard anyone else voice my exact feelings about the veil that you make in random thought 1. Thank you.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective, Ardis. This is really important.
Thank you, Ardis. Youve given me a lot to think about (per usual) and im grateful to sit with your words.
I really appreciate your perspective on this. Your perspective made me wonder what my own mother’s experiences are with the temple, considering that she has been single for forty-two years and has never been sealed to anyone, parents, spouse, or child.
Good post, Ardis. I’m sorry that you have not been part of the conversations about being a single woman in the temple. I don’t have links to share, but I know I have had discussions about this topic with other women. You and I move in slightly different circles of the bloggernaccle.
I experienced this briefly myself between marriages. (It happened when married and attending solo, but of course did not have the same sort of impact.) I had the different experience of being **divorced**, so I was already feeling marked and suspect. I do remember a few times standing there waiting for some guy to come up and let me participate in the circle. The temple is a lonely place when you are not what you “should” be.
I echo Cathy’s comments above. Thank you, Ardis, for your courage in sharing. As has happened many times before, you’ve opened my eyes to a new perspective.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I value all the ways you build our community of saints. You’ve given me much to ponder.
What an amazing, incredibly important post. Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you for your thoughtful insights.
Thank you for sharing. I am a temple worker and want to send this to my Temple presidency and ask them to read this to every temple shift for a week so all temple workers hear your voice and reflect on how their actions impact patrons.
Thank you for sharing this.
I understand the loneliness of being single and going to the temple. Shortly after I was widowed, I received a very specific answer to many months of fasting and prayer to learn what I needed to do now. There were two things I needed to do, and attend the temple regularly was one of them. Even though I had a spouse, she was dead and the endowment just seemed to be a reminder that I was alone. While well-meaning, the phrase “She’s there on the other side, waiting” seemed to be code for “You’ll be better off once you are dead, too.”
Apparently, I wasn’t attending enough. About a year after I got that direction, I was called to be a temple worker. Now I didn’t have any choice.
The Church is a hard place for a singe adult. The temple is even harder. Thank you for giving an eloquent voice to your perspective.
Thank you for sharing these important thoughts.
Thanks, Ardis, I experience a similar experience in the temple as a single male.
“There has never been and seemingly never will be anyone waiting for me in the Celestial Room” reminded me of times I’ve gone there to be alone with God. The room can work for that, but it’s ill-adapted to the purpose. It’s set up more, I think, to embody Joseph Smith’s teachings about earthly “sociality” being “coupled with eternal glory.”
In some ways, I take a lot of comfort in those teachings. I like to think that the good social relationships of all kinds that I have here will or can continue. But I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with the problem — if we make our mental picture of heavenly society in the image of our earthly society, then is heavenly society as cliquish or exclusive as the society we have now? Does it cause as much pain to the people who are pushed to the margins instead of being invited into the center?
Really, though, shouldn’t enjoying the presence of God be more than sufficient? I don’t mean that in the “magic solution” sense of suggesting that this should be enough for you while other people get to enjoy the promised “sociality” that the room is clearly set up for; I mean it would be better if the whole church regarded the presence of God as no mean gift. But instead I hear repeated jokes about how strumming a harp must be boring after a few eons, and aren’t we glad to know we’ll have something more to do.
If things had been different, maybe the Sacrament would have been a time when we focus on communion with God. The Book of Mormon has Jesus telling the Nephites that anyone who eats the bread and drinks the wine eats and drinks his body and blood so that their souls “shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled.” (3 Ne. 20:8). But I think the Church has wanted some distance from the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, so the vast majority of LDS talks, lessons, and casual conversation I’ve heard on the subject focus much more on the “remember” and “witness” aspects that are emphasized in the prayers and in 3 Ne. 18, and much less (if at all) on eating and drinking as a way to let God in.
We’re left without any good way to just bask in the Presence, and with a set of doctrines and cultural practices that suggest that we should want more than that. I wish something in the temple or in the other ordinances of the Church was more welcoming to that desire.
At the risk of asking a question that’s far afield from the intent of your post — since your non-funereal graveside wishes are being recorded here, is there a hymn that you’d find particularly appropriate to the occasion?
Mike R., any hymn will be for the living, not for me, so I leave that up to someone else’s judgment. 🙂
Thank you, all, for a long series of wonderful comments. I didn’t have to worry after all.
You could list a hymn and a metronomic marking. Although I’m close enough to your age that I can’t promise to be around to carry it out.
Thank you, Ardis. This is an important insight for all of us. It’s hard to allow oneself to share such personal feelings, and I appreciate your wIllingness to trust your readers so fully.
I love you, Ardis.
Thanks for your thoughts! Always interesting.
No advice, no judgment. This could have been spoken with anger or cynicism, and you chose a beautiful, disarming honesty. Thank you for this, Ardis.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed in hushed tones by many of my fellow single friends. And often times if I want to feel the peace in the temple that married people express, I have to ignore several parts – I feel the Spirit in spite of the ordinances, often not because of them. It’s hard being single in a married church, and the temple can dial that up to 11.
Thank you, Ardis.
I am reminded by this that each of us has our own path to travel, and that any one person’s experiences are just that, their experience, and none of us are to judge. Thanks for sharing what has to have been difficult to express.
I am always so impressed with your talent in conveying your thoughts and feelings in these personal posts. Seriously, what a gift and thank you for sharing it.
I love your heart and brain and heart-brain. Thank you very much for this perspective.
Oh, how I relate to this. Thank you.
I relate so deeply as a single, childless woman of a certain age. Thank you for articulating so many of my own thoughts and feelings.
I wish we could always be so open and honest with each other. The way you’ve shared this makes it undeniable- there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to gospel living, there are so many perspectives. Thanks for sharing.
Ardis, I write this particularly to you and for the sole reason that you will know that you are not alone in your feelings. I am a woman in my 60s, never married. I was endowed when I was 31. As I have grown older my eternal future has grown substantially more bleak. Somewhat dimly lit and gray. I can’t find a way that I fit in anywhere there. And the idea that some handsome prince awaits on the other side of the veil is, I believe, only comforting to the person who ascribes to that theory. Its relevancy to my life and in my life has pretty much vanished. Attending the Temple in an unmarried state now seems hypocritical, as though I’m pretending to be someone I’m not and cannot be. And yes, I agree that being veiled is the only moment of privacy that can be found amidst all the humanity and constant monitoring that goes on there. And yes, I want to be buried in my Temple clothing. ( I am endowed after all.) And yes, I don’t want a funeral. And yes, Above all else, dedicate the grave. And yes, someone — sing this hymn #167 Come, Let Us Sing An Evening Hymn.
Thank you.
This hurt to read, but I’m glad you shared your feelings. The emphasis on temple+ marriage is so strong. I’m thinking about my ward…what can we do to help include people more?
That is exactly how I feel about the veil. I would find the Celestial Room a lot more comforting if I could veil there as well. I no longer believe that sealings are as restrictive and exclusive as we teach, I see it as sealing the human family to God and each other.
I’ll be there, Ardis.
JNR, Comment 36. I don’t think there is an problem with veiling your face in the Celestial Room. I think I’ve done it in the past. I recently became a temple worker, and that’s certainly not anything I’ve been told to prevent. And sometimes you need to discuss things with God rather privately.
Bless you, Ardis. As one small result of your very thoughtful discussion I can promise that I will never hesitate to accompany a single sister in the prayer circle. I wish I could do that for you.
As a single sister in the church, I have never been able to exactly place my feelings on topics such as this into adequate words like these; thank you.
I was sealed in the temple and 17 years later my husband resigned his membership in the church. I’m not single, but in many religious aspects, I’m solo. The temple is the only place I’m lonely and constantly reminded that I don’t fit. Thank you for this, Ardis.
I never comment (or read) the Bloggernacle anymore. But I am so happy to have violated my policies in this case. I know you and you have helped enrich my temple experience many times by sharing names (and stories) with me. Thank you for that, and thank you for sharing these thoughts with all of this. “If you’re tempted to tell me how to resolve my longstanding difficulties after you have given it all of 12 seconds of thought, please don’t.” Amen to that
brava, dear Ardis. Simply beautiful. So many of us are ever grateful for your more personal thoughts on this and many other things.
I could have written most of this post, including the family history angle. I strongly believe in the promises of the temple, but I have talked about this issue of covenanting to a nonexistent husband and how basically the Mormon approach to single people is “better off dead.” I was actually suicidal about it when I turned 31 because it felt like the moment at which all hope of ever fitting in ceased. Of course, then I lived longer and realized just how fun being single in your 40s is in the church, and despite great belief, I just … can’t. I can’t find it in myself to show up every week even to church, let alone the temple, only to receive the same message every week that I don’t exist in the theology and that my existence is unwanted. I could have gotten that from my abusive family of origin–I don’t need to feel that at a place that’s supposed to be a source of comfort and joy.
Thank you for sharing, Ardis. I echo similar sentiments.
Ardis: This was very powerful and beautiful. Thank you so much for being generous and vulnerable enough to share it. There is much to think about here. I believe expressions like yours truly help build Zion because they help us understand each other and be more “one.” Thank you.
I managed to enjoy going to the temple single, but there are so many other aspects of church life that being single makes awkward or unpleasant to me. And people saying “Well, there’ll be someone waiting for you on the Other Side,” even if true, a) implies that I’m not enough to go to the CK as I am, and/or b) fails to acknowledge or address any pain I might be feeling *now*. So thank you for your thoughts on this, Sister Parshall.
I have often wished I had kept a running list of bookmarks over the years for some of Bloggernacle essays that I think are especially worth preserving, sharing, and remembering. This certainly meets that standard. Thank you, Ardis.
This is my first time visiting your site and love your SINCERITY! Your candor shines through as you express gratitude along with a restrained/reluctant admission that parts of our worship experience are inherently uncomfortable. Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
I got the chance to attend the temple this past week and do both an endowment and a sealing session. Since I’d gone there by myself — no family or friends were in either ordinance — my singlehood stuck out to me pretty intensely. When I went to participate in the prayer circle with other folks, in couples, it was with a stranger for whom I was also a stranger. When I was in the sealing room, I had to ask one of the women there — both with their husbands — if she’d stand in for my great-great-great-grandmother.
We don’t have allowances for lone (wo)men out of the garden.
That said, I deeply value the significance of temple ordinances and I love that we do have ritual clothing. I would hope to be buried (or cremated) in mine, as a symbol of the community to which I belong, instead of something I purchased at one point.
Thank you, Ardis. The temple can be a very hard place to be.
Thank you, Ardis, for expressing your feelings so well and so forthrightly — and to several commenters on being veiled in the celestial room and the feeling of being alone with God. I have most appreciated my own temple experience when sitting alone in the celestial room with my eyes closed.* That works for me — to shut out the quiet socializing and to invite others to leave me undisturbed. Note: This is a report, a self-reflection. It is not advice. It’s a tactic that may not be useful to anyone else. And it won’t solve most problems.
*Others would likely be disturbed if I wore a veil. 🙂
Ardis. God bless you for your testimony, work, endurance, love, honesty, candor and amazing way with words. My reasons are different but the outcome is the same. Knowing that I will never, in this life, tick all the boxes for the Mormon model of admittance to the CK, gives me freedom to aspire to another model of communion with God. I feel assured that the sociality for you in the afterlife will be widely populated with many of us who know your voice.
As another single woman, I really appreciate your ability to articulate this so clearly and well. Thank you.
Estoy aquí, porque creo que me envió el Padre, soy un Presidente de EStaca, tengo mi conferencia de Estaca este mes, creo que este es un mensaje que daré a todos los adultos solteros y el templo, y nuestra responsabilidad de no hacer sentir a nadie que es menos que uno. Gracias por compartir esto con alguien de tan lejos..de Chile. un abrazo
Dear Ardis – Your thoughts really resonated with me. Although I am married with children, I have several daughters who married later in life and I anguished with them about the promises (but no real evidence) for single members in God’s plan.
I would love to play a hymn at your graveside! (I’m a professional violinist and play at many funerals.) But I hope NOT to hear for many years about your demise.
Thanks for sharing such important and sensitive personal information here.
I love you Ardis. And I love the wonderful community you are creating here. And I don’t mean just bringing good people together, but making us all better people by being here.
Thank you for your perspective, Ardis. I’m so glad you’re you.
Thank you for sharing your personal, heartfelt, brave, and eloquent thoughts. There is much to ponder here.
This is fantastic! Thank you for your thoughts!
Translation of Luis’ comment (#55)
I’m here because I believe the Father sent me. I am a stake president; I have my stake conference this month, and I believe that this is the message that I will give to all the single adults and the temple, and our responsibility to not make anyone feel they are less than another. Thank you for sharing this with someone so far away. A hug from Chile.
Thank you, TOClark. Your translation is much more eloquent than GoogleTranslate.
Thanks so much for this honest and uplifting post. As a single woman, I too have sometimes felt more acutely aware of my singleness in the temple. I appreciate reading of your faith, and am reassured by a sense that our awkwardness and uncertainty and different ways of dealing with things don’t prevent us from progressing.