[Andrew]

Brian wrote:

Most of the time these days, I tend to pray without words, neither mentally nor spoken out loud. I like to get into a state of mind where I feel connected to “the divine,” and then I picture my family members in my mind one at a time and try to feel thankful for them with my whole being. I hold them in my mind for a good minute or more each, and think about what I like/love about them. Or I do that same thankfullness contemplation with other people or ideas (like picture where I work, etc.). I feel like my whole body/soul is singing as I feel thankful. I think of it as singing with my soul to God (or the universe, or whatever).

This is cool.

I also like Heber13’s approach:

Quote:

Sometimes I just need time to be still, and unplug from the world.

Quote:

Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God

I’ve been experimenting a bit myself. I try to talk (usually form mental thoughts rather than out loud, though sometimes, depending on circumstances, I’ll whisper or mouth words) in the language I use normally (so no Jacobean English for me).

I’ve also been doing some experimentation with set prayers, despite my inborn Mormon aversion to “prayer by rote.” I find that set prayers are a nice way to center or direct my thoughts on a particular desire, need, or thing I’m grateful for. The Upper Room, a Methodist Ministry, has nice little daily devotionals: a scripture reading and a personal story followed by a brief, suggested prayer. A couple of interesting Christians, part of the New Monasticism movement, put together a liturgy for, as they somewhat preciously say, “ordinary radicals,” called Common Prayer. Each day on the Common Prayer site, they post that morning’s devotional (with links to midday and evening prayers). Some of the stuff is well beyond my comfort zone, but I still find some spiritual connection in doing some of it.

And, as grating as I find pat Sunday School answers couched in this sort of high Mormonspeak, and as much as I don’t care for Elder McConkie, I still think this description in the LDS Bible Dictionary is quite lovely:

Quote:

As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are his children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7:7–11). Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work, and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.

[Andrew]

Even at my most believing, I never “got” the temple endowment. I felt so let down and just kind of weird after my first time. That never really changed for me.

I can appreciate baptisms for the dead theologically, though experientially they’ve never done much for me, and even though I no longer buy the logic behind them (i.e., everyone needs the ordinance of baptism by the proper authority). And maybe I was just giddy to be married, but I thought the sealing ceremony was quite beautiful.

But here’s what I find most problematic about our emphasis on the temple: I think that the way we talk about it is just setting people up for disappointment.

First, we talk about it in such vague terms. Nothing in the temple prep course I took prepared me to go to the temple. Nothing. I had no idea what to expect, other than making some promises and getting some new undies. We ought to be a lot more explicit about what happens and why. I’d love to have had an official explanation of the temple clothes beforehand, for instance. Or to have been told that the endowment narrative is more allegorical than historical.

Second, it is built up as a special, sacred experience in our Sunday School materials, by leaders in GC and by local leaders. For someone who comes away from their endowment feeling uncomfortable, icky, disappointed, or even simply ambivalent about the whole thing, the logical conclusion from all the temple rhetoric is that the individual is to blame for their reaction. On top of coming out of my endowment feeling uncomfortable, I also felt guilty that I didn’t love it. And I felt this every subsequent time I went; I’d “fake” enjoying it, and that made me feel even guiltier for BSing people. As with any ordinance or meeting or whatever, everyone will have a different reaction. We ought to acknowledge this.

I have plenty of other issues with our temple building frenzy: it doesn’t seem sustainable or supportable by the local members (or by senior couples); I don’t know that our current growth rates justify our temple building pace. And of course because of my rather dim view of the endowment, I think temples are a tremendous waste of resources that could better be spent building schools or hospitals in impoverished parts of the world. I’d love us to move to a paradigm in which temporal and physical salvation was viewed as urgently as spiritual salvation. But that’s just me.

[Andrew]

Great intro, mom3.

[Author]

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