Female Ordination and the Church: Another Way

I am one who has struggled mightily with female roles in the Church and in eternity, yet I have a VERY hard time being sympathetic to Ordain Women as a movement. Most individuals who have aligned themselves with that group, I sympathize and even empathize with. I have gone to the mattresses on many of those same issues many times. I am not known for my reticence in speaking up.

There is nothing new about Ordain Women. They have organized together in direct, open, and unapologetic opposition to the Church. I'm not going to pick apart their claims to faithfulness and belief in priesthood authority while publicly opposing that authority. There is really no need, it's obvious enough. I also have no doubt that there are well-meaning people caught up in the smoke and mirrors. But I personally don't have a very long rope when it comes to that brand of deception, conscious or not. I'm all too well acquainted with it.

Explaining the Importance of Marriage and Family

The last two Sundays, I substitute taught the 12-13 year old Sunday School class. These are the same children I taught a couple of years ago. Perhaps because the universe (or God) has a sense of humor, this time around I taught preparing to receive temple ordinances, and how to explain the importance of marriage and family to others.

The temple has been very rough for me since my divorce. It used to be the only place I felt at home, but having lost some of the covenants I made is especially painful when I attend the temple. Maybe it's ironic, having a divorced woman—and one who chose to file, no less—teach preparation for the temple and the importance of marriage and family. After all, from the outside, it could easily be said that I did not honor my covenants in the temple, and that I obviously don't value marriage or family all that much, since I gave them up. In many ways, it was a little humiliating to stand before these twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys and girls, as yet largely untouched by the pain of sacrifice and loss, and try to teach them something for which I'm a very shaky example.

The Nature of God

There is a great deal of speculation about the nature of God. Some time ago, Clean Cut posted his view of the nature of God in several posts, and it was mentioned that I ought to do the same when I asked for post suggestions.

Some questions which people like to discuss include whether or not the Lorenzo Snow couplet based on the King Follett discourse is true ("As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become"), whether or not God and Jesus are one as in one person, not just one God, and just what exaltation means in an LDS context.

I've pondered and read some about this, and will continue to do so, since I don't feel complete in understanding. Though there is much I consider too sacred for an online forum, there are some things I know about God which I would like to share here.

Conditional Love

A discussion over on FMH really got me thinking about some of the choices I've made in the last decade, as well as how relationships and love work. They began talking about unconditional love in conjunction with some discussion on marriage and divorce. Some thoughts came to me which I felt were worth reproducing here.

Everyone’s love is conditional in one sense or other. True unconditional love in the sense that most people mean it—that I can do anything I want and not suffer loss of intimacy—CANNOT exist. That’s one thing I learned from my experiences in my marriage. I stayed with my ex-husband through some pretty scary times over the years because I believed in unconditional love like that.

But true unconditional love does not exist without boundaries or limitations. Conditions on love are different than boundaries. To set a condition on love means, “I will only love you if you do this.” That was something I experienced up close and personal in my marriage. Unconditional love really looks like, “I will always love you, but I’ll not be close to you if you engage in behavior that is destructive.”

I still love my ex, in the sense that I want what is best for him. I would love it if he would repent, become a good father and maybe even a good husband some day to someone else. But to the extent of my power, I will not let him hurt me or the children any more.

So I love him unconditionally, but I will not stay close to him unconditionally.

I think most of us have a pretty twisted sense of what real love is. I imagine this is what makes it hard to understand a God who wouldn’t just forgive all and let us all come back to live with Him no matter what we do. We conflate love and intimacy. I imagine that God will always love us, but we cannot be close to Him if we engage in destructive behaviors.

The Search for a Mother

I understand the desire to know a Heavenly Mother. When I was exploring religious options I became very close to the concepts in Wiccanism. There are many varieties of Wiccanism (including the gothic dancing in the park variety, though that wasn't the one that resonated with me.) All varieties, however, worship a Lady to some extent. As a self-hating girl, this was one of the things that appealed to me the most. Perhaps through the worship of the Lady, I could come to know, understand and love myself better. As time passed and I prayed to know the truth, I received confirmation that God led the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints and not Wiccanism. This doesn't mean that I understand all things about the Church and its doctrines. I have seen many conversations in the Bloggernacle, especially on the more pro-feminist sites, that discuss the Church's doctrine of a Mother in Heaven. Most of the time, they express dissatisfaction in the Church's dealing with and practical acceptance of this doctrine. "Why can't we pray to Mother?" seems to be the greatest of these complaints. Most of those who address this have varying reasons for (or accusations against) this doctrine.

As we grow as children, we go through phases where we are closer to our mothers and phases where we are closer to our fathers as we learn who we are in this world. A theory that once occurred to me ("cute" though it may be) is that in the pre-existance, we had our Mother-time, and now we have our Father-time. Thus, we now pray to our Father where we once communed more with our Mother. As mortals, we only see the here and now and often forget that our existence stretches beyond our memories. We see this small moment in our beings as unfair because our Mother isn't here. With a truly eternal perspective, I suspect that we will understand the greater picture of our Heavenly Parents.

One of the more interesting arguments as to why the active worship of a Mother in Heaven is allowable under the true, original gospel is to put forth Asherah of Old Testament infamy as Heavenly Mother. If this is the case—not only that the worship Asherah was pagan, but that it originated in revelation from God—than it illustrates poignantly why that worship is not currently allowed. The worship of Asherah was shockingly lewd. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that it was a wild brand of fertility worship probably dating back to the worship of the Mother Goddess of prehistory. This sort of worship violently opposed chastity, modesty, family and propriety. It spawned (or was closely associated with) Molech sacrifice. It encouraged idolatry and dichotomized worship of the God of Abraham. Many of the more obscure tenets of Moses' law were framed to outlaw Israelite worship of the Mother goddess as inherited from their Egyptian masters.

Naturally, many who argue for the reinstitution of Mother worship also disregard the importance of chastity, modesty, family and propriety as outdated, patriarchial concepts. In this sense, as for me and my house, I prefer the Lord of Israel's way.

In addition, a greater Church encouragement of knowledge of and prayers to our Heavenly Mother would lead to a division of worship. Truthfully, Mother and Father in Heaven are inseparable. They are One, unified. As mortals, we find it nearly impossible to understand this concept, especially in this Age of Individuality. We worship the Self, we venerate independence. Obvious worship of a Mother in Heaven in our weak understanding would most likely lead to a division in the Church. Some would lean towards Mother, others towards Father. In our ignorance, we would create "sides" and then believe that there was something vital to be gained from one side or the other. It already happens, even without Church-sanctioned prayer to Heavenly Mother, as evidenced by the number of people who (mostly anonymously) admit to praying to their Mother. Most of them see themselves as more spiritually progressed than their siblings who do not pray to Her. The concept serves to divide, not unite. It does nothing to help us prove our obedience and dedication to the Lord. I suspect that any further knowledge of Mother is suspended until we are ready to worship both Her and Father properly.

Furthermore, we pray to the Father, not to Christ. I reiterate that we, as mortals, have almost no ability to truly understand equality. We continually conflate it with sameness or wander into superiority of one kind or another. (Use the feminist movement as an example. Very few, if any, feminists truly believe in equality. Most believe either in sameness—that there are no differences—or in swinging the pendulum to the side of female superiority. We seem unable to truly understand different-but-equal in any practical sense.) Therefore, in our mortal doctrine, Christ is spectacularly subservient to the Father. The hierarchy of Heaven is made obvious to us, so our mortal minds might understand what is necessary to return to God (namely, the sacrifice of His Son and all the doctrine associated with it.) If we included a more active role of Mother, how would the Church present this heirarchy? Either Mother would in some way seem subservient to the Father, or the Father would in some way seem subservient to Her. Neither eventuality contributes to the purpose of our mortal lives. At present, all we can do is speculate on how our Parents could be of one mind, and pray and wait patiently until we know the truth.

In the end, the only real answer is one most people will hate: we don't pray to Her because we have been commanded not to. We don't know the reason, but we will, given time. Patience is a virtue that is becoming rarer as this world winds into the final Act, but it is vital in the search for humility and exaltation.

Priesthood vs. Motherhood

I haven't posted in quite some time. My sister is getting married this week, and I've been sewing dresses for myself and my daughter. I also try not to post unless I have something significant (to me, if not to anyone else) to say. In reading Feminist Mormon Housewives (a blog I read often and find interesting, though I'm certain I'm not considered "cut from the proper cloth" there,) I've slowly gathered the urge to write about something that seems to be a recurring theme there.

Not too long ago, a commenter mentioned that they were sick of hearing the priesthood compared to motherhood, and felt that it demeaned both. I've mused over that for some time, and have come to a couple of half-baked questions on the subject. Why would priesthood be compared to motherhood? What is the correlation?=

1) Motherhood is about discomfort and pain.
I put this first because pain is how I became a mother. I went into labor with only two hours of sleep under my belt. I was exhausted and wanted to rest, but my body had other ideas. When a man holds the priesthood, he often finds himself sitting in meetings rather than in a hammock under a tree. He finds himself physically exerting himself to mow an old lady's lawn, or help someone move. He finds himself blessing someone to die, rather than to be healed. Although the pain of holding the priesthood is not comparable to the pain of childbirth, it is present over a much longer period of time, and often comes by surprise.

2) Motherhood is about service.
This one is obvious. The priesthood is not about power and authority alone, it is first and foremost about service. It is a holy calling to serve the Lord's children. The power and authority given through the priesthood is given only to allow that man to better serve. The priesthood requires monthly visiting of every family in the ward. The priesthood requires sitting on the stand at church, rather than with family. The priesthood requires getting up at all hours of the night to bless someone who is sick. The priesthood requires humbling oneself to speak in God's name. The priesthood requires giving up one's own desires and hobbies in the service of the family.

3) Motherhood is a proxy for Heavenly Mother.
We don't know much about our Heavenly Mother. It is necessary for our earthly mothers to represent our Heavenly Mother. The priesthood requires a man to stand as a proxy for Heavenly Father. Matthew 25:40 - "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," could also read "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it on behalf of me." What a daunting responsibility! I can't imagine what it would feel like to know that I was supposed to represent Heavenly Father to someone who is sick or steeped in sin and needing love and reassurance.

4) Motherhood is about joy.
The joy in motherhood seems bittersweet to me. I treasure my daughter's smiles and hugs, knowing all too soon, she will want nothing to do with me as she moves through her teenage years. The joy in motherhood is found in serving despite possible consequences. When I was a missionary, I felt similarly about investigators and inactives as I do now about my daughter. I loved them and gave them everything, doing things I hated doing to give them a chance to accept the gospel, knowing that most would reject it through the "teenage years" of their spirituality. It must be similiar to a worthy priesthood holder, especially one with a stewardship calling (like a family, or a ward.)

5) Motherhood is about letting go.
The priesthood cannot be wielded through force. My husband is learning to exercise his priesthood. He often gains inspiration on my behalf. It is difficult to me, who has been independant for so long, to accept and act on his inspiration. Unsure in his position as presiding priesthood in our home, he must be nervous to share his impressions with me. He will some day understand that, much like motherhood where the mother may know best, he needs to learn to let go of my decisions, but to share his impressions anyways. That sometimes seems an almost impossible balance.

These thoughts, as I've said, are rather ill-formed and half-baked. Granted, also, one must worthily hold the priesthood in order for them to apply. But it's a start towards understanding, at any rate.