Thoughts Re: "Veils"

[Calm]

15 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

That's not to say there aren't some obvious differences. For instance women are more likely to convert to the church and more likely to stay active. But I suspect a lot of this is just differences in interest and expression - especially when given sufficient power. I am far from convinced women are more spiritual in aggegrate. (And of course staying active isn't the same as being spiritual)

Has anyone studied religious attendance of women who have equal access to the social benefits of having a career?  It is possible that more women attended church due to having limited social networks and thus church provided a significant support base and outlet for interests they may not have had elsewhere.

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, blueglass said:

there's a lot of research on the symbolism of the caul (thin membrane of skin shrouding the baby's face at birth), and the gifts of seers in Mark Ashurst-McGee's thesis.  Joseph Smith Sr., and his mother say that Joseph Smith was born with a caul veil, which midwives and others believed blessed the child with second sight abilities.  

I agree that this is highly relevant to the symbol of the veil- regarding birth and emergence from the veil in the re-birth of the resurrection portrayed symbolically IMMEDIATELY AFTER the prayer, interrupted only by an explanation of the marks which is not part of the endowment really.

[Maidservant]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

"God and women having conversations of which the husbands were not necessarily a part."

I see this as happening to individuals as opposed to genders.  Could you explain where you see this happening for women (will no longer refer to Bible as that would be "ancient", is the D&C relevant in your view to the current or eternal experience of marriage?)?

Agreed.  As individuals.  I think I am originally responding to people who said that the man was between the woman and God.   I am saying--no one is between anyone and God.  Exhibit A, one of my favorites: OT women and their revelations.  Doesn't have to be OT.  So agreeing with you.

I haven't studied the D & C as much in my studying and pondering in terms of understanding the veil and the other temple symbolisms, including marriage.  I guess that's next :).  Just long pondering on the temple itself.  Relevant?  I think for me to answer that question . . . well, I'm always thinking my own things, so I guess I might say yes or no, but until I have it studied in depth, I couldn't answer.  What do you learn from the D & C about these kinds of things?

[Maidservant]

I think I missed something earlier and why we might be talking past each other.  The idea that men are not in the presence of God.  Obviously, all people can be in the presence of God when they take that journey.

Also a definition of God might be helpful here, or a definition of 'presence of God'.  (Shekinah? or is that too much?)

Someone else put forward the idea of one or the other of men (or women) being conducted into God's presence by the other gender.

I do not think this is what occurs in real time (by either gender) (but?), but in the temple I am curious and have an understanding (at this time), that the position the woman plays IS AS God, or the presence of God, which I DO consider Mother rather than Father, Mother as taught in the scriptures and temple, in my understanding at this time.   In other words, the woman is veiled not FROM God, but because she IS God, and thus must be veiled.

Obviously, all genders also become (and already are) God--and together.  Not only in marriages, but we all become Gods together as a whole mankind or at least church.

But I don't think it helps to not see the female gendered symbolisms, just as it doesn't help to not see the male ones.  There is a lot of gendered symbols and reality we work with, for better or worse.  But people are so afraid that in the temple and scriptures, women are put under, and by the same symbols, I think they are put at the crown.

Should they? Is it helpful?  Is it real?  Is it really about men-women or something else? I don't know.  I like it :).

Note: I think the entire endowment (rooms) are to be understood, at least on one level or map, as a womb.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Maidservant

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Maidservant said:

I think I missed something earlier and why we might be talking past each other.  The idea that men are not in the presence of God.  Obviously, all people can be in the presence of God when they take that journey.

Also a definition of God might be helpful here, or a definition of 'presence of God'.  (Shekinah? or is that too much?)

Someone else put forward the idea of one or the other of men (or women) being conducted into God's presence by the other gender.

I do not think this is what occurs in real time (by either gender) (but?), but in the temple I am curious and have an understanding (at this time), that the position the woman plays IS AS God, or the presence of God, which I DO consider Mother rather than Father, Mother as taught in the scriptures and temple, in my understanding at this time.   In other words, the woman is veiled not FROM God, but because she IS God, and thus must be veiled.

Obviously, all genders also become (and already are) God--and together.  Not only in marriages, but we all become Gods together as a whole mankind or at least church.

But I don't think it helps to not see the female gendered symbolisms, just as it doesn't help to not see the male ones.  There is a lot of gendered symbols and reality we work with, for better or worse.  But people are so afraid that in the temple and scriptures, women are put under, and by the same symbols, I think they are put at the crown.

Should they? Is it helpful?  Is it real?  Is it really about men-women or something else? I don't know.  I like it :).

Note: I think the entire endowment (rooms) are to be understood, at least on one level or map, as a womb.

Circumambulation of the source of life is a very very very ancient practice and unquestionably you are right at least in my estimation.

I have posted on the remarkable blessings which come naturally to women which men have to "earn" before but I am not going there again at least here.

Edited March 17, 2018 by mfbukowski

[juliann]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

Has anyone studied religious attendance of women who have equal access to the social benefits of having a career?  It is possible that more women attended church due to having limited social networks and thus church provided a significant support base and outlet for interests they may not have had elsewhere.

That is a really good point!

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

For instance women are more likely to convert to the church and more likely to stay active.

This is certainly not the case where I live. Over the past three years, every one of the converts in our ward has been a male. As of this week, I have a new calling that allows me to access data from the entire stake. I can only see converts from the past 12 months, but males outnumber females 3.5 to 1.

I served my mission in America. In our mission, men converted at a rate double females. The only place I've lived as a adult where we had more active females than males was the four years I spent in a singles ward whilst studying for an undergraduate degree at a public university in Utah.

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

Has anyone studied religious attendance of women who have equal access to the social benefits of having a career?  It is possible that more women attended church due to having limited social networks and thus church provided a significant support base and outlet for interests they may not have had elsewhere.

I've not seen that study. Utah/Idaho biases things because frankly the way women's careers are treated here are deplorable (IMO). 

It seems a really worthwhile study though to compare activity of women with careers (let's say reasonable salaries) with equivalent men in terms of salary/education. My guess just based upon personal anecdotes is that women would still be active at a higher rate.

The best we have is education as a stand-in but that doesn't work since what you bring up are opportunities for careers that take one away from church activity as well as alternative social communities that come to dominate in preference to ones ward.

Edited March 17, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Calm]

"My guess just based upon personal anecdotes is that women would still be active at a higher rate."

I wouldn't be surprised.  I think there is a high level cooperative aspect to churches that may be missing in many other social networks that may be more fulfilling for women than men on average (speaking purely of the social aspects).

Edited March 17, 2018 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

Unnecessary 

Edited March 18, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

I don't see a blog address in your profile, you should post a thread with it in Social or edit your profile so it has the address in case people don't trust their Google skills to find it.

[juliann]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

"My guess just based upon personal anecdotes is that women would still be active at a higher rate."

I wouldn't be surprised.  I think there is a high level cooperative aspect to churches that may be missing in many other social networks that may be more fulfilling for women than men on average (speaking purely of the social aspects).

I'm wondering how it would correlate with the type of job women had. Would career women be less accepting of a church that didn't allow them to participate in most positions? Does the wonderful women's social network work as well with employed women when a lot of what is required to connect requires daytime activity? 

This is very interesting.

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

I don't see a blog address in your profile, you should post a thread with it in Social or edit your profile so it has the address in case people don't trust their Google skills to find it.

The link is in my siggy

[Calm]

4 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

The link is in my siggy

Ah.  I have signatures blocked as it makes posts easier to read.

[Stargazer]

On 3/15/2018 at 4:47 PM, Jeanne said:

Whatever it means...to me it rings so tacky..(I'm sorry)...but when Mom died..the last thing I wanted to do was cover that beautiful face..why not let it shine and mean something beautiful?  No veils..approach God and Men..unashamed.

When I was the last person to see my beautiful wife's face in her casket, and then I covered her face with her veil, it was one of the meaningful acts of love I have ever performed for her. As if, although she was already gone, I closed her righteous life on earth as she began the next stage of it on the other side. I do expect that, when we are reunited, I will lift her veil from her face as we begin our eternal life together. That is how I see it, at least.

Symbolism doesn't always ring the same way for every person, clearly.

[Mansquatch]

On 3/15/2018 at 11:12 AM, smac97 said:

And some grievances come off to me as nothing more than presentism.  That is, if wearing a veil is subjectively representative to me of oppression and subjugation now, that is what it must have meant a couple of thousand years ago.

We do need to understand the reason presentism is so powerful. And that reason is that the present is where we live and where I keep all my stuff.

[Jeanne]

10 hours ago, Stargazer said:

When I was the last person to see my beautiful wife's face in her casket, and then I covered her face with her veil, it was one of the meaningful acts of love I have ever performed for her. As if, although she was already gone, I closed her righteous life on earth as she began the next stage of it on the other side. I do expect that, when we are reunited, I will lift her veil from her face as we begin our eternal life together. That is how I see it, at least.

Symbolism doesn't always ring the same way for every person, clearly.

This speaks for both of us and our personal understanding of those things that are important to us.  Let us meet at the bridge..a mormon and ex mormon..I will say that I can't see things the way you do..because I have never been in the Temple..but I love my mom..her face and her love...you can say..I don't look at it the way you do Jeanne...the veil means something that you may not understand....but I love my wife, I love her face and all that it represents to me.  The very bridge we meet covers a great body of love.  Thank you..and I do understand what it means to you.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Jeanne

[Hamba Tuhan]

On 16/03/2018 at 7:53 AM, Calm said:

... the veil is not evenly placed over the head because it is tied on...which restriction can add its own sensations for those of us bothered by tightness around the neck ...

In our training at the temple this morning, it was mentioned specifically that women may tie their veils behind their heads, so not around the neck.

[bluebell]

5 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

In our training at the temple this morning, it was mentioned specifically that women may tie their veils behind their heads, so not around the neck.

That would be intriguing to try.

I say intriguing because it's hard to keep the veil in place after it's tied in general, and I'm not sure if that would become worse if it was tied behind the head.  Things tend to stay better when tied under the chin than behind the head so switching it could solve one problem but cause a whole slew of other ones.  .  

I'm not even sure how I would even try tying it in the back though.  Putting on the veil is stressful (most of them have to be put on in a really awkward way with the veil starting out upside down and backward and flipped right-side up after tying, and that's why it's common for it to end up on backwards-it takes some practice to manage it).  Tying it behind the head while it's on upside down and backwards, with your face covered, would be quite the feat!  

I'm sure it can be done though and its awesome that the temple tries so hard to be accommodating.  

[juliann]

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

In our training at the temple this morning, it was mentioned specifically that women may tie their veils behind their heads, so not around the neck.

I'm surprised that was ever considered an issue to be addressed, who would ever care?  BTW, it doesn't work, at least with the hair comb variety. The whole thing just falls right over your face. Trust me, I've tried every arrangement. 

[bluebell]

23 minutes ago, juliann said:

I'm surprised that was ever considered an issue to be addressed, who would ever care?  BTW, it doesn't work, at least with the hair comb variety. The whole thing just falls right over your face. Trust me, I've tried every arrangement. 

I was wondering about this.  It's really hard for most women to get something to say put on the top of the head when it's tied behind the head the base of the neck at the back.  

(For the men reading along who might not understand why it would be a problem, the shape of most heads just isn't conducive to that arrangement-the tension will cause the tie at the base of the head to start to slide up the back of the head while the part at the top starts to slide backward and downward toward it.  You need a lot of hair or a specific kind of hair style to keep a tie like that in place.) 

[mfbukowski]

On 3/20/2018 at 10:22 AM, Mansquatch said:

We do need to understand the reason presentism is so powerful. And that reason is that the present is where we live and where I keep all my stuff.

And so we should remain ignorant of the past or the changes in language, and human culture, right?

I mean after all if it ain't a text message to me right now it's got to be irrelevant to my life RIGHT NOW right?

Who cares about all that old stuff any way!  These adults don't understand anything.  Look how they messed up our world!   Don't trust anyone over 30!

Hashtag duh.

Edited March 25, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Hamba Tuhan]

15 hours ago, juliann said:

I'm surprised that was ever considered an issue to be addressed, who would ever care?  BTW, it doesn't work, at least with the hair comb variety. The whole thing just falls right over your face. Trust me, I've tried every arrangement. 

The context of the instruction was that some woman prefer and use this arrangement and that there's nothing wrong with it.

But yeah, I certainly should have known better than to share such information here... 

[Calm]

10 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

The context of the instruction was that some woman prefer and use this arrangement and that there's nothing wrong with it.

But yeah, I certainly should have known better than to share such information here... 

It is always helpful to know the options, but also important to know others' experiences because that may help to know how much effort to invest in trying to make a particular option work.  And it helps to not get ticked off at yourself for yet something else not working if you know it is a common problem.  If one lives where wearing scarves are common, I bet there are more women that can figure out how to make it work just because it becomes easier to tie a scarf just right with practice (not too tight as it's painful, not too loose as it will slip, knot in the right place so it is not annoying or migrates easily, not too far forward on the forehead or it slips forward, not too far back or it slips back...it is an art   ).  In my experience, as soon as you start fidgeting with a scarf, you might as well take it off and start again as it pushes the hair into sticking out the wrong way.  Lots of experiences with scarves in the past as clips didn't work for me and even elastics wouldn't stay in place after an hour or two and I never learned how to French braid (my one regret about my hair, too shy to ask someone to teach me, couldn't figure it out from how to books;  I think about growing it out just to try that, but it must be at least five pounds, I lost a lot of headaches when I chopped it off because my daughter insisted on pulling it constantly every time it came into her reach...plus taking four hours to air dry and never drying if pulled back...yeah, don't miss it).

I have tried the veil knot behind in the past.  Tying it back could work if you don't mind it being really, really tight or you have long, heavy and/or possibly curly (the kind that tangles easily) hair to anchor it (my hair is bone straight, won't take perms, so don't know if curls help or hurt), but it definitely still allows it to slip around in a way that tying it around your neck doesn't.  I had long hair before both kids, down to my hips with the second one and it is fine in texture, but thick in amount.  If my hair is short or mid length, the material is too slick to stay in one place without the heavy hair at the ears holding it in place.  A heavy cottonblend or raw silk (something that has a rougher feel to it) might work, but usually even rougher fabrics staying put requires tying it quite tightly, which I find it difficult with the veil to do given its size and how it doesn't really stay in place while trying to tie it that way.

It is good to have the option out here, but also good to know it may not work for most women so that if you want to do it that way, you should work on it first at home to figure out how it might work for you (a French braid down both sides of the head might work, a ponytail was too far back to 'brace' it against for me).  A long clip that can fit all the fabric plus enough hair would probably keep it in place, I don't know for sure as I never tried it, clips didn't stay in my hair due to the weight and slickness.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Calm

[Mansquatch]

On 3/24/2018 at 10:37 PM, mfbukowski said:

And so we should remain ignorant of the past or the changes in language, and human culture, right?

I mean after all if it ain't a text message to me right now it's got to be irrelevant to my life RIGHT NOW right?

Who cares about all that old stuff any way!  These adults don't understand anything.  Look how they messed up our world!   Don't trust anyone over 30!

Hashtag duh.

Not sure if you are on my side in sarcastic agreement, or are attacking me in some strange way.

Do you believe that the fact that we live in the present and people don't look at history makes presentism powerful by default, as I said?