All About Funny Hats

“Yesterday in the morning, I took out my endowments. There are so many aspects of the Church I had never even pondered before. The fact that I am a prince and a king in my father’s kingdom had never struck me before. How loving and forgiving our father is and how much Christ cared for me.”
(Journal Entry, 10 September 1995)

In the run-up of the summer of 1995, I was preparing to leave on the LDS coming of age requirement: an evangelizing mission to non-Mormons. I was told that I would serve in Brazil. I hardly knew where it was and had hardly even lived more than an hour away from my hometown.

Looking back from my current vantage point in life, I can see how the adventure and allure (not to mention the social stigma within Mormon culture) caused me to make the decision to do this. I wanted an adventure and life experience. Everything in my life seemed as if it hinged upon this experience! People and places in my childhood and college life up until this point became fleeting and transitory ciphers. I was well-meaning when I was with them, and even intended to keep track of them, but after removing myself from their immediate vicinity, I quickly found it impossible because of the impending adventure.

The closer I was to turning 19, the more urgently I felt the need to care for my soul. I worried that I would not be good enough, but also turned my attention to missionary efforts with new acquaintances. I had marginal success with the supervisor at my job at the car wash, but failed badly with a girl I met shortly after arriving at my dad’s house in Idaho. Looking back now, I am extremely ashamed at how badly I treated her when she rejected the message. Granted, part of that had to do with the fact that I decided not to date her anymore because I was just going to leave in a month, but nevertheless, it was shameful.

Shortly after the long-awaited birthday, I went to be endowed in the temple. Admittedly, as I write this, I have since soured on the experience, but I wanted to record things that I would never have dared to record at that time, believing them to be to sacred to talk about.

That day arrived, and my stepmother and I would be taking them out for the first time together. I couldn’t wait; I was finally going to get to experience all the amazing and special things I had heard about: the veil, the celestial room. I remember taking a temple “preparation” class, which now seems to have been mere window dressing and prepared me for nothing.

I remember stopping to buy garments at the store by the temple with my dad and stepmother. We then went inside to change and then to be initiated. Far from feeling holy, I felt like I was in a bland and sterile doctor’s office. I listened to the blessing and shivered inside each time a part of my body was anointed with oil. I was happy for that part to end.

As I returned to the locker room to put on my new garments and white temple clothes, I noticed some strangely dressed men coming towards me. They were wearing white clothes too, but what caught my eye was the sash over their shoulder, their green-colored aprons and their bizarre hats. I thought to myself, “Those must be the high priests.” I thought that they were dressed like this because of some high officiating role in the temple. I did not realize that everyone would get the pleasure of dressing this way.

As we stepped into the endowment session, my stepmother and I were given front row seats, presumably so that we could be helped as it proceeded. My mind was blowing with all the new material; all of this seemed so strange. Why did I need a new name, what in the world were all these handshakes for? There is a moment when you are asked if you want to leave, and for a fleeting second I thought to do so. My curiosity ultimately got the better of me. I felt that there must be a deep symbology there that I was missing. I also knew that I was ushered into the Mormon elite class. Now I could speak from experience what this was like. I left feeling invigorated and excited.

While I didn’t feel a Pentecostal rushing of winds that day, I honestly felt as if I had learned something new and amazing, and that my life had fresh meaning. Ironically, the shiny new sheen began to wear off shortly, and as I lay down in bed that night, all I could think was that I would never again be able to sleep the way I had always remembered sleeping in the summer: boxers and no shirt. It seemed weird that I could never take off these T-shirts.

I knew things were different now. Suddenly, I had to worry about the length of my shorts, and felt subconscious taking off my shirt around other people. My shame and guilt the first time I had a nocturnal emission in my new garments was immense. I wondered why I couldn’t keep my mind clean and what was wrong with me? I felt as I expect a person who has just been baptized must feel: much pressure to do good and huge disappointment in my own innate human frailty.

Now as I look back on the experience, I can’t say that I had utter revulsion for it. I was a naïve and untested youth. I never thought to question the practice; it was a part of life as a Mormon. Ironically, it seemed “normal”.

The more I learn of how this practice was introduced into Mormonism, the more my opinion changes. I do not, as some extreme enemies of the LDS church do, look on this as some weird Satanic rite. That is NOT what it is.

It seems to me that it is simply a relic of the early Mormon Church from the Nauvoo period. That was a time of great theological and doctrinal expansion by Joseph Smith. He was also excited by his recent initiation as a Master Mason. He wanted to provide an elite ceremony that would make his followers believe they were indeed part of something special. It may have even been to keep the doctrine of polygamy secret among those who accepted the practice.

I don’t believe that God will require secret handshakes and new names from everyone as they arrive in heaven. I surely don’t want to be buried in a ridiculous outfit that reflects that belief. I truly believe this ceremony is just an artifact of the social upper class in Nauvoo. While I don’t find the temple ceremonies remotely sinister, I also don’t find them interesting and get no personal benefit from attendance. This probably explains why I make no effort to go and feel absolutely no guilt about it.

Every Fiber of My Being

I Love History
I love history. I always have. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. It was always my favorite subject as far back as I can recall, since even before I attended junior high school. There is something about explorers like Lewis and Clark, Alexander Mackensie and Captain James Cook that could always hold my attention. I was a pretty fearless reader when it comes to fictional historical subjects too, and I remember devouring Greek, Roman and Norse myths as a child when most kids were outside playing or reading the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew. Don’t get me wrong, I love fiction too and it has its place, but my real passion lies with hearing true stories about actual events.

The first biography that I can recall reading as a pre-teen was a book on Porter Rockwell by Richard Lloyd Dewey. My interest in this work was two-fold. The first was history, the second was personal. As I grew up steeping in Mormon culture and lore, I had heard stories whispered about the Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith’s bodyguard. He was a character in line with folk heroes like Kit Carson and Wyatt Earp, and a complete contradiction to everything I’d ever heard about Joseph Smith. As I read the book, and admittedly found an appreciation for Porter Rockwell and his dark history, it was the first time I’d ever questioned Joseph Smith’s judgment. Why would he keep a person like this around? This was not the last time I would doubt the judgment of Joseph Smith.

As I entered high school, a teenager’s many activities and the attraction to the opposite sex left little time to explore this passion for history. I read the required history books with vigor, but did not have the resources to read much besides fiction. Besides that, my desire to have a social life and be more than a bookworm quickly got in the way of learning about clearly nerdy things like history.

A Passion Rekindled
When I returned from my LDS mission, my passion for history did not surface for a few years, as things like dating, getting married and professional development intruded on any serious effort to read on any subject besides the required material for my college degree. One quarter in college, my passion for history was rekindled when I took a “broaden your horizon” class about the culture of the Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. The rich history of that culture made me want to understand all history and culture from a different paradigm.

Around the same time, I also viewed a movie that made me eager for the truth behind the myth. The movie was called Gladiator, and was set in ancient Rome. I knew it had mostly fictional characters, but was based on some factual events. When I returned home, I searched the internet for the truth about the characters in the movie, and found that a great number of historical movies, including many of my favorites, were not true to life and were often greatly exaggerated for the sake of telling a great story and making a legend. From that time on, I could never see a movie and not understand its historical context. I began to use the internet as a way to fill in the gaps in my knowledge each time I needed it.

My quest for truth eventually led me to read biographies and histories on early American leaders and American wars. I could not get enough understanding of how people interact and do what it was that made them famous. I endeavored to learn about the American Civil War, then World War I, and then World War II. I read about Revolutionary War heroes and 19th century American Presidents. The time came, after I had finished reading one book, that I felt that I was running out of things to learn about, and that I needed something new.

At a point of desperation in my search for the next book, I looked at my sparse home library. It contained mostly once-read history books, and other spiritual books that I had been given, but never cracked. Slowly it dawned on me; I hadn’t read a thing on LDS history since I was a teen. Not one book! Outside of the few things I heard talked about by my father as a youth, a year in LDS seminary and some anti-Mormon tracts on my mission, I knew nothing about the actual history of my own church!

Oh, I had heard plenty of anecdotes about pioneers and handcarts, and mobs and tarring and feathering, but they never fit in a cohesive, chronological narrative in my mind. I never bothered reading LDS Sunday School manuals, knowing they would preach to me, but would not provide an unbiased fact-based historical account. I felt that there must me some scholar who had created a work that would tell me the story I wanted to hear in a way that satisfied my need to know the truth.

This search put me in the right frame of mind when I stepped into the bookstore one dark autumn night. It was a church bookstore, and a place I rarely bothered to darken the doorstep. Sitting there on a prominent shelf in the front of the store was a newly released biography of Joseph Smith by Richard Bushman. I picked it up. The dust jacket promised it would not to shy away from controversy, and that it would be a fair treatise of the subject. This was what I had been looking for! Now I could study Joseph Smith with facts and unvarnished truth. I may never have picked it up, if not for my love of history.

This book was just the beginning for me. As I eagerly consumed its pages, I learned the chronology of events of the early LDS movement. I learned fact after fact that was previously unknown to me. I hadn’t even finished the book before I was plotting my next moves, I needed to know more. I HAD to know more about other early church figures like Emma Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Brigham Young and Oliver Cowdery. I found and read whatever I could get my hands on, keeping clear of obviously biased works as I could. However, the lack of books on these and other foundational LDS events finally led me to the same place I always went in my search for truth: the internet.

How Far I’ve Come
This brings me to where I am now. Two years after picking up that book, history has done me in. Having looked in every cranny and under every rock concerning LDS history, I am fairly confident in saying that I no longer believe all the foundational stories as I have been taught them by the modern LDS church. I have found that many of the writings of Joseph Smith are insightful and some are even inspirational, but that they are the creation of his own imagination and his own philosophy and should be viewed that way. There are many of his writings, like The Book of Mormon and those contained in The Doctrine and Covenants, in which I still find some measure of comfort and peace. Others I can reject outright, like The Pearl of Great Price, although its attempts at defining theology are intriguing. These books cannot be relied upon for their historicity and I believe each of them was written in the 19th century, through the creative processes of a man who was bold enough to say he spoke for God.

I also feel Joseph Smith mislead many of his peers with claims of divinity so that he could keep his place as the head of the community. While he was a charismatic and sometimes inspirational leader, Smith abused his position to gain sexual access to women among the believers and created elitism among the hierarchy that continued throughout the 20th century until today.

It was his abuse of public trust at the head of the society he had created that led directly to his assassination by a lynch mob. I now know that Joseph Smith’s legacy has been scrubbed and embellished for use in the missionary program of the modern Mormon Church. He has been mythologized and set on a pedestal higher than even he could have imagined in his lifetime. My personal opinion is that he would have approved and enjoyed this elevation to this status, it was what he was trying to achieve during his life.

Couple these historical inaccuracies with the inflexible, conformist culture that exists in the modern Mormon Church, and I have a serious problem. I love the people who I see at church each week. I love to serve them and get to know them, but the pressure to conform or be ostracized is strange and even cult-like. I don’t like being told what to do by people who, from all appearances, are unthinking drones. I approve of being told to never question a leader, because this creates unthinking drones.

My life is forever altered by all that I have learned. I feel that I can never again believe as I used to. I’ve made a difficult decision that I will remain a part of the Mormon Church. I don’t feel as though there is much of a choice at this point in my life. I will play the part as much as I can. I find happiness in the good friends and community that I find at church and I see no real reason to separate myself from that.

However, this means that I can never teach in this Church. I will have to find ways to serve that don’t require me to spout the “party line”, as it were. I have to focus on good things that improve me, my family and my relationship with my wife. It also means that I have to live a lie and put on a façade of the true believer, and only have the truth squirt out in the rare moments when I can bare it no longer.

Where I’ve Been
Though I didn’t realize this, I have been this way long before the history caught up with me. I just did not become self-aware until the history clicked into place. I have always refused to be a cliché and always wanted my life to be unique! I have never enjoyed the houndings we get on certain subjects in this church. I’ve always thought the preoccupation with appearance to be over the line. Why should God care about the color of shirt that I wear, or if my hair hangs long and shaggy? I don’t believe He does. Does He really care if I mow the lawn on Sunday or play outside with my kids? I don’t believe He does. Does He want me to feel guilty and worthless over every step I take? No!

I’m finally understanding why when I returned from my LDS mission, I did not look forward to a regular Sunday School class. In my mind, I had boiled the Gospel down to a couple simple precepts: faith and repentance. Do we really need to talk about anything more? Do we really need lessons on paying more money to the church, or constant harping on this program or another? Isn’t church really just supposed to teach you how to be a better person in life? This may be why I have often attended a Sunday School class that was normally for new members called “Gospel Essentials”, it taught the basics and left the guilt someplace outside. Aren’t the basics all the Jesus really taught anyway? Love your neighbor, and set your light on a hill?