it occurred to me
As I sat doing some work yesterday, trying to plan my week, it suddenly occurred to me that I am no longer a current temple recommend holder. My temple recommend expired on March 31, 2007.
That realization came with mixed, though mostly happy, emotions. It made me smile, I said a little hallelujah in my head, and I felt a sense of liberation. I also felt just a twinge of sadness, mostly because I knew how much my family will hurt over never seeing me in the temple with them again. And I knew how many future weddings I'll be excluded from because I won't lie about my beliefs, wear funny underwear, or give 10% of my income to a billion dollar corporation whose policies I strongly disagree with.
I got my last temple recommend just over two years ago, when I was in a state of turmoil about the church. I hadn't yet read most of the books on my sidebar, and I hadn't yet let myself think "Can it be not true?" I was still in a state of mind where I thought the church was something special, and I thought that renewing my recommend would provide an anchor for me. I thought it would help me ground my beliefs in those essentials: Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, priesthood restoration, latter-day prophets. I thought having the recommend would help me keep up my activity level, my "standards," for a couple more years while I decided what I really believed. Also, I thought there would probably be a family wedding soon, and I couldn't comprehend missing it because I hadn't renewed my recommend during a period of doubt.
So I renewed it, saying "yes" and "no" at all the right places, though I was putting caveats on most of the answers, inside my head. I didn't feel that I was lying about anything, I just had a liberal definition of "prophet, seer, and revelator," and when I agreed that the church was the true, restored church, I was answering entirely on a gigantic leap of faith. Which isn't what the church wants, but I think it's what a whole lot of people do.
I had purposely postponed reading Palmer's An Insider's View of Mormon Origins and several other books until after the recommend interviews. Within days of getting the renewal, I cracked open those books and read with an open mind.
And that's all it took.
2 comments:
Your story made me reflect on my own story. I specifically decided at a certain point that I would no longer be "temple worthy." DH and I went out for coffee to seal the deal. I don't think my recommend had expired yet at that point, but I considered it null and void. I felt extremely free, like I had taken my authority back for myself and there wasn't some man at church that could have any authority over me. What a great feeling that was and still is.
No doubt! It's pretty funny to me that I wasn't "temple worthy" within a month of renewing my recommend. I always played with the idea of going back to the temple one last time, as a nonbeliever, but never got around to it. So now I'll never know if I would've been found out or struck by lightening or invited the devil into the temple. lol
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