The thought occurred to me as I was waking up this morning.

I was raised in the church and had been prepped by a nice bishop that the temple ceremony might seem strange (I don't know if strange was his choice of word), but to stick with it.

Anyway, it was weird to me. Having to put on a silly outfit. I'd never had to do that before. Having to remember a new name, a bunch of handshakes, a whole line of dialogue about me and my posterity, talking to an old guy through a veil.

I thought it was weird then, and thinking about it now that I'm out, it's just like this tacked-on thing (obviously ripped from the pages of Masonry) that my whole (dedicated) life to Mo'ism hadn't prepared me for.

Has that thought occurred to anyone else? It's like, church was a boring, normal affair, and then suddenly I'm playing dress up and role-playing. So out of left field, thinking back on it.

Mormon church services usually feel normal and boring, while temple rituals are weird and seem to relate to day to day mormonism.

It's like those horror movies that start out in a wholesome, friendly, typical town until the zombies creep out of the local graveyard.

I'll admit thay I left before I ever got a chance to receive the full craziness of the temple ceremonies, but even the baptisms for the dead left me feeling that the temple was weird. I hated going. It was so out of the character of the rest of the church.

I never felt the spirit. How the hell can you feel the spirit when you're trying to catch your breath in between each dunk, worrying about whether or not your underwear was showing, were sopping wet, had eyes that felt like they'd been soaking in chlorine for weeks, and the stupid 70's movies being shown. There is nothing peaceful about that.

because the adult rituals are so much more alarming.

From my own experience and from reading many other accounts, I think the baptism for the dead experience can be mild or alarming to kids depending on the circumstances on a particulare day in a temple and the temperament of the young person involved. Some kids are deffinitely traumatized by it, others laugh it off, a few probably might find it spiritual, and some go away feeling cheated or less than adaquate. Mormons temples are very weird and I have to agree with everything you and the OP said about them.

Mormons are special because they were more righteous in the pre-existence. Saturday's Warriors. They have the truth and God's power.

Within this elite mentality, the temple provides another way for mormons to further delineate themselves within their own ranks -- the elite of the elite. The ceremony needs to be special enough, different enough, and unique enough to drive its members to follow its rules and go those extra miles... specifically tithing.

after completely upending my life with sudden, forced churchgoing on top of an interstate move, because my mom thought a temple marriage would be better than the one she had. It wasn't.

But, of course, she'd deny it all now. That time the took off in a snit and Dad called me and Brobotaz to the livingroom to inform us of the possible impending divorce, because the temple marriage wasn't what Mom expected, NEVER HAPPENED.

That one is burned into my brain, compared to some of the other little snippets of memory that make me think Mom and Dadbotaz both knew the thing that they had foisted upon me was bogus.

Another thing that's burned in is from the ward trip to Manti, where they got the wonderful temple marriage that wasn't so wonderful. It's a comment by a girl from a family that had just been baptized as I was being dragged to church, whose parents were temple married at the same time as mine. It takes a year of churchgoing and tithe-paying, right? So I guess it was about a year later.

Anyway, this convert girl was the most gung-ho Mormon I've ever known to this day. She's one of my FB friends and seems a lot more relaxed about it now, but at the time you'd never have guessed she was a convert ... that is, until she said the adults all looked dazed when they came out of the temple.

That's *dazed,* not awestruck or filled with the spirit or anything like that. And she said it with a bit of sarcasm that wasn't in keeping with who I thought she was, which is why I remember it.

I didn't see my parents or any others until much later, but I'll never forget her saying that. And now that I know what went on in there, it makes total sense.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2010 12:12PM by munchybotaz.