Motherhood and the Temple

My friends:

President Hinckley's oft-quoted eulogy and tribute to his dear departed:

"My children and I were at her bedside as she slipped peacefully into eternity. As I held her hand and saw mortal life drain from her fingers, I confess I was overcome. Before I married her, she had been the girl of my dreams, to use the words of a song then popular. She was my dear companion for more than two-thirds of a century, my equal before the Lord, really my superior. And now in my old age, she has again become the girl of my dreams."

Back in 2001 I was in a Pearl of Great Price class at the University of Utah LDS Institute, instructed by Robert J. Norman. His illustrations and presentations of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, the Holy Temple and the body of Christ were spiritually intoxicating. Rarely would he give his lessons without bookending his remarks with the pleading of his classes to strive to see the temple and the gospel in every last thing: in our classes, in our jobs, in our worlds.

Walking across campus to my next class I would ponder upon the trees and stones, the sun, the people milling about me, and seek some kind of link or connection to truth. It was not hard to do. And when I would get to my astronomy or biology or humanities or whatever classes, sometimes without even consciously seeking these, they would be so apparent that I could hardly take notes.

I discovered something sublime in those days, and proposed my thoughts to my sister's fiance' Joe. What penetrated my brain had done so with such profundity!It is significant to us all, as we try to understand exactly why it is that women, mothers, should be recognized for what they are. I presented to Joe the following:

Having just received a lecture on reproductive anatomy, I sallied across the grass to the old Institute building for my class with Brother Norman. The lesson that day was on veils. After his remarks and when I was the only student lingering, I approached him and said somewhat sheepishly, "Brother Norman, I do not wish to be inappropriate or vulgar, but I just came from a science class and... I was thinking that the female's (gulp) hymen is one of those veils."

"Oh, absolutely, Mike!" came his response. "I am glad that you made the connection! In the tabernacle and the old temple, only one man, the designated high priest, was allowed ever to enter the holy-of-holies and make his offering."

I quickly went to the temple to observe, think and pray. As I watched the men and women sit and move from room to room, and especially during the transition from the Terestrial Room to the Celestial, it hit me: as we, men and women, pass through the veil we move like gametes, sex cells, into the womb that is the Celestial Room. We are not allowed to be together with one another until that time. Talk about being reborn! In that Celestial place where man and woman are made one, their obedience to the covenants exchanged in the sealing ordinance obligates the Holy Spirit to ratify those vows and exalt them as one, as a new Elohim. As sex gametes come together in the womb and grow into an unique organism, then that child's spirit joins and a new life is created.

When it is said that the body is a temple, this is now what I think of: our bodies represent the process we will all go through as we are reborn. No, we cannot re-enter our mother's womb, but how about marriage and Celestialization, along with all of our other sacraments!

So that is what I told Joe, and he readily acknowledged my thoughts. Here is what I have not told him, as I have not yet come up with explanation. Here, again, I am wanting your insights, everybody.

Veils. Women wear them in the temple and it is absolutely symbolic. Of what? They say that Father makes nary a mention of his counterpart, our Mother, in order to preserve her dignity and to protect her. But I am sure that there is more. Why do they veil their faces when they do? In a civic wedding ceremony, the unveiling of the woman's face as the couple become man and wife makes complete sense. In our temple, to me at least, it is far less apparent. Also is the question regarding reproductive biology: the egg cell comes from within the veil as the spermatozoa comes from without--and should only happen with consent. Here is the discrepancy, as in the temple both parties are ushered about and brought to the veil in like manner and enter the same way. The reason that the women veil their faces is the explanation, I believe, but what is that reason? Any ideas, please?

Retruning from that digression, I would like to return to the real point of this essay, and that is the sacredness of womanhood. Within each woman is the holy power to sustain a new life, and then birth it as its own individual being. Yet for three-quarters of a year its tissue is connected to the mother. Motherhood is such a divine thing, making inherent in the fairer sex those qualities and attributes (Christ's name) which elevate their callings and status and natures. A woman's biology make it not only possible to bring the child into the world, but also to nurture it upon arrival. Pornography has taken these body parts created to make mothers what they are and mock God, mock the purpose for which these 'models' were created, mock life itself. Those body parts are what make women mothers, the holiest of callings. Respect women. Though without us bumpy and ugly men there would be no propagation of life, those attributes we seek to attain in order to be more Christlike can be found and polished in parenthood.

When President Hinckley referred to his wife as "my equal before the Lord, really my superior" he was not giving a mere lip-service or a melodramatic lamentation. No, he was teaching a true principle. I know a woman, an endowed member of the LDS Church, who believes that whenever a man makes such a complimentary remark about womanhood that he is really trying to placate to all females everywhere, that he doesn't really mean it, and that the man honestly thinks that he is better. To her I say "bah!" I can never achieve motherhood and understand what it is like to carry a life within me and then feed it. I look forward to fatherhood eagerly, and luckily have a service-driven, sacrifice-centric fraternity of which I can be a part, and that is the Priesthood. Motherhood is innately service-driven and sacrifice-centric. So was the Atonement.

Atonement, eh. Let's talk parallels between child-birth and what Christ did. Well, the word 'travail' is associated with both. The breaking of tissue followed by water and blood flow are both there. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death in order to bring new life--yep, check and check. Mothers (not so much these days as has been in the past) put their lives on the line for the life of their child. The discomfort, the pain, the sacrifice, the bleeding--all of it done for the perpetuation of life. All of it done so that those two sex gametes, after growing together, forming and being joined with a spirit, can be born. Or reborn.

Let's go to the temple. Let's thank our mothers. Mama, I love you. ...Papa, I love you too. Larry, I love you too. Danny, Terra, Joseph, Yuki, parents to my nieces and nephew, I love you too. Let's thank our Savior. Let's respect womanhood.