Two paths going left and right in the forest. If you take one and not the other, are you going astray?
Two paths going left and right in the forest. If you take one and not the other, are you going astray?
Picture of Heidi Toth
Heidi Toth
Heidi lives, writes, runs and shovels more snow every winter than she would like in northern Arizona. She studied journalism, political science and business and works in communications. She responded to the pandemic by going back to school in 2020 and earning a second bachelor's degree in religious studies.

Going astray, or taking a different path?

Relief Society has always felt like the safest place in church to me.

It’s not safe, exactly, but the patriarchy is better hidden and I am usually more comfortable being more honest and open in that meeting. When I say something with which others disagree, no one feels the need to announce their disagreement. I don’t have to sit through lessons on the scriptures that came from a church manual that was written by men and fight the urge to point out bad translations, the context we always ignore, the prejudice and patriarchy baked into so many of the verses we all love. Plus, I know enough women who struggle that I assume that there are others in that room who are on a similar path as mine. If one of my few church friends are there, it’s even safer. I feel so much less alone when I know I’m not the only one whose relationship to the church is, let’s say complicated.

None of that is true anymore.

Last month, I went to Relief Society. My friend and I didn’t notice in time that the topic was President Henry B. Eyring’s talk “All Will Be Well Because of Temple Covenants.” We both flinched when we saw it but decided to stay. 

Now, the topic of the lesson, while problematic, didn’t end up being the problem. I will start with saying I haven’t read this talk, so it’s possible the talk was fine and it’s only the title that is horrendous, not doctrinal and, if I’m honest, a little blasphemous, not to mention utterly contradicting of the topic of sacrament meeting, which was about how Jesus Christ saves us. One speaker specifically mentioned that temples do not save us. And now here we are, in the midst of a lesson about how the temple will save us. Not the temple will help us feel closer to Christ, will help us be better, will help us become more spiritual. No, the temple is the reason everything will be OK.

But again, I can handle a lesson on a topic with which I don’t fully agree. At this point in my church-trust-relationship-crisis, that is every single lesson.

No, the real problem arose at the end of the lesson. I’d been mentally cringing through most of it, listening to the women talk about how much the temple had given them and how much they knew it gave to others–that it was the right place to be for everyone. As someone who does not get much from the temple–the last time I went, in 2019, a temple worker asked me if I was pregnant and patted my not-pregnant-just-fat stomach–I was trying to leave space for the knowledge that other people felt differently and that was fine, and the way I felt was also fine and that deserved some recognition. I was debating raising my hand when my friend next to me raised her hand.

She then shared what I’d been thinking, but more eloquently–that everyone did not find Jesus Christ in the temple, that it was not a place where everyone felt safe and had good experiences and that we needed to be careful having such reductive conversations. I wanted to applaud but settled for whispering my agreement to her.

Then a woman a row in front of us raised her hand. Her love for the temple is well-known, which isn’t a problem. Her problem is insisting that everyone else share the same love for the temple or they’re wrong and butting in anytime people express the remotest question with the certainty that when they go the temple, everything will be resolved. She proceeded to say exactly that, including turning around to my friend and offering to go with her. My friend, who just shared something really difficult in a space where I know she doesn’t always feel safe, was now being put on the spot and told to correct herself because her feelings and experiences were wrong. 

(And they weren’t even overtly her experiences! She never said she felt this way, just that we need to keep in mind that people do.)

How did the woman in front of us respond after her “loving” offer was politely declined? Well, she continued to insist that her experience was correct and other experiences were incorrect. I was shaking with anger or sorrow or this slap in the face that no, this was not the safest place. No place here was safe.

And I wish I could say that was the end of it. Reader, it was not. Right after the teacher agreed that yes, everyone felt differently about the temple, another woman raised her hand, announced that she was a temple worker and was “blessed” (can we just … not with this word?) that all of her children went to the temple, but that some of her siblings had “gone astray” and it caused her parents significant grief. (Note: I’m certain her siblings were all close to retirement age.) And I snapped. Because according to her definition, I have “gone astray.” I don’t go to the temple because it’s not a safe space for me. Neither is church, and I’m not there very often. These women do not offer a safe space for anyone who does not agree with them. I am not on the covenant path. But in my living room, where I am sitting on a Sunday afternoon writing this, I can be myself, I can feel close to Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father, I can say things out loud and I can cry and I can express my doubts and ask questions and feel only love, understanding and acceptance from divinity. 

I found out later my friend left about 30 seconds after I did; the woman’s comment moved from “gone astray” to accusing my friend of having something fundamentally wrong in her life, which is why she doesn’t feel comfortable in the temple. It could only be sin that causes discomfort in the temple–not the overt misogyny and inequality, not the clothes that are mass-produced and don’t fit well, not the covenants that require promises made not to God but to the church. No, it must be sin. And that is perhaps the saddest, maddest thing of all–that people in the church, that the church itself, simply cannot allow for different experiences. The “my-way-or-the-highway” idea that we have rebranded the covenant path hurts and excludes people–the same types of people whom Jesus Christ sought during his ministry. The misconception that discomfort comes from sin, that someone’s dislike of an aspect of the church reflects their relationship with divinity, that those who are offended “chose” to be that way as tempted by the devil instead of having a reasonable response to something offensive. People like me and many of those close to me, people like you and the readers of this blog who sought out community online when their IRL community failed them. People who have left because they knew they would never fit and people who keep trying to fit and being reminded over and over again that they don’t. People whose sincere questions and efforts have been met with rejection because there is simply no place for them on the covenant path, so they are pushed off or wander off or intentionally step off. And what looks like “going astray” is in fact simply “taking a different path.”

Read about respecting others’ journeys in The Visible Symbol of Our Covenants.

Photo: About 3 miles into the Ice Lakes trail in Silverton, Colorado, hikers have a choice–left or right? Both get you to the top. Both are hard. If you go right, it’s steeper–so steep that I scrambled almost on hands and knees to get up. I stopped to take breaks every 20 feet or so. It is the harder choice, but when you get to the first lake, you’re done with uphill. Plus, as I have bad knees and the trail was muddy, coming down those angles made me fear for my safety. Take the left and it’s still hard, still steep, but not as steep, plus you get to the more beautiful lake first and get the reward. But if you keep going to the second lake, you have another punishing climb. I went right. Most of the hikers that day went left. No one went astray. We each simply took the path that was right for us.

Read more posts in this blog series:

Heidi lives, writes, runs and shovels more snow every winter than she would like in northern Arizona. She studied journalism, political science and business and works in communications. She responded to the pandemic by going back to school in 2020 and earning a second bachelor's degree in religious studies.

11 Responses

  1. Copy paste. This is my experience in my ward.
    The new “let’s take a few minutes before the lesson to talk about an important topic to us” initiative that the general RS President asked each ward RS to do has me not wanting to attend RS. The video to introduce this new initiative, has women discussing the importance of wearing garments. How is this helpful, other than to point out who in the room is or isn’t wearing garments and how can we “lovingly” make others conform? The Mormon church is taking on a life of its own outside of what Christ ever wanted for “organized religion.”

    1. First, I have not heard of this new initiative, and I do not like it. I imagine that exactly what you described in your ward is going to happen everywhere–on the surface it’s a chance for everyone to share! But it’s really just a chance for those who already feel safe sharing at church to reinforce their ideas and further alienate those who already don’t feel safe and don’t need one more space in church to not feel safe. And second, your last line reminded me of a sentence in “When Religion Hurts You,” by Laura Anderson, which a friend recommended and I read during sacrament yesterday; the author details all the things her church required of her. There were so many verbs–eating, drinking, wearing, feeling, thinking, saying. It felt just like Mormonism. The church has decided it needs control over EVERY aspect of its members’ lives. For no good reason, just because of the idea that such control will keep people in (because it is too hard to leave).

  2. Thank you for this, Heidi. I feel exactly the same way. There is not room for those of us who do not find God in the temple: the problem is always presumed to be ours. If we don’t allow for everyone’s experiences, we cannot expect people to bring their whole selves to church, and we cannot expect to retain people who are constantly told there must be something wrong with them because they do not experience the temple (or other things) in the “correct” way.

    1. There is something simultaneously sad and freeing in the realization that I am always going to be “wrong” according to the church. Saying it out loud made me realize I can stop trying.

  3. I am having similar experiences at church. Ive thought a lot about how when people aren’t comfortable with others being different than them, having different perceptions and experiences, it is a symptom of emotional immaturity. Its also reductive, binary thinking. I love your anecdote abt the last time you went and got patted on the belly. It made me laugh out loud. Church and LDS family are place of constant assessment and being checked up on if we’re conforming to expectations and doing what others want from us. I love the point you make that you feel closer to God at home. So it is with me! And I feel closer to God in my independent thinking path than I did before! I love God more now and am actually in greater awe of God

  4. Thank you for sharing your experience so beautifully. It is a painful place to be, and as I read, I couldn’t help but wonder how many times in the past did I do that to someone by proclaiming the right answer, the one “true” thing that is acceptable to say — all in an effort to erase the uncomfortable feelings and “bring the spirit back into the lesson.” I see things differently now. I used to love going to the temple (gotta check that box every week!) but now it does not bring me peace. It’s a struggle for many reasons, but to express those reasons out loud means that I’m doing something wrong. But am I?

    How can we really mourn with others if we can’t appreciate or have respect what is causing pain for others — especially when it doesn’t fit nicely within the neat little box we have been handed in church?

    1. “I couldn’t help but wonder how many times in the past did I do that to someone by proclaiming the right answer”–Susan, I feel this so much. One of the most uncomfortable parts of deconstruction is reliving those moments when I did exactly the same things to others that now make me feel othered. I have a mission companion I want to track down to apologize for being so worried about “exact obedience” that I basically tortured this poor woman, who just needed a break every now and then, to follow every single rule to the letter. The excuses I’ve made for patriarchy, the dismissive way I’ve treated others’ beliefs … it’s tough. I have to remind myself that now I need to do better and that I can and should feel bad about that but I also can and should forgive myself because I’m also a product of this system.

  5. Ah. I see you. The grief in the realization that I was being pushed out of the community and gospel that I loved because I couldn’t conform or stop thinking was shocking to me. I’m so sorry. Also, the covenant path upset me every time it was brought up in ward counsel and I think you explained why: “The “my-way-or-the-highway” idea that we have rebranded the covenant path hurts and excludes people–the same types of people whom Jesus Christ sought during his ministry.”

  6. That sounds so hard and also so familiar. It hurts to lose a safe space.

    I once started a lesson about the temple by recognizing that not every sister in the room had been to the temple, not everyone had been endowed or married, and that sometimes people struggle with aspects of the temple ceremonies. That sets up the whole class to be more open minded about people with different experiences. I’m not sure I would have thought to do that if I hadn’t had my own struggles about the topic though. I think generally it’s helpful to acknowledge that other people in the room may be questioning or wrestling with whatever topic is being discussed. It validates their experience to the whole room and says that it’s okay to share that kind of struggle. It’s okay to not look perfect at church. I like church a whole lot better when people feel safe to share their authentic self rather than wearing the Church Face mask–it lets the whole mourn with those who mourn thing happen better.

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