What I want my church to do for Latter-day Saint women

[Diamondhands69]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

 

I have always thought it was more about not accidentally putting items in the wrong locker, picking something up accidentally, forgetting something, as well as making it very easy to find one’s locker again.  How often are people going to forget which row and which cubicle locker is theirs when they come back?  I would be forgetting each and every time most days.  That kind of stuff just doesn’t take root anymore.  They need a tag that isn’t going to be able to be accidentally hung on the wrong hook and therefore force a nightly check to make sure all the tags are on their hooks or whatever.  A key is a tag that belongs to only one locker.  The key solves several problems at once, none of which have to do with thieves.

Those locks are not exactly invulnerable.  At best they are a mild deterrence,  and that would seem enough.

I have been going to an often crowded  Utah Valley Center for a year or so now and people come in with purses and keys and phones and they leave them in their lockers.  Yet in the past year I have only seen one lock used and that is my own.  It was drilled into me by my parents and teachers when I lived in Illinois hitting the YWCA and California in Jr High and High School that locks were the intelligent thing to do and now it’s instinct so I have to even when I know I don’t need them (always use keys as I have way too many nightmares about going back to school after years being gone and being expected to remember not only the locker, but the combo, wish we used keys with those lockers and maybe I would have less nightmares).
At the Rec Center it’s very easy to find the locker you were using, even for me, because I am wise enough always to choose the same location.  Can’t do that in the temple with their setups.

If they don’t need locks to prevent stealing in the Springville rec center, I doubt they need them for that in most temples.  But a key is a very convenient location device and that is something very much needed.

A police officer friend of mine in my ward who had a temple in his beat ( the same one we used to go to) told me any time I went to wedding and such to lock up my shoes too. They had someone for a couple years stealing high end oxfords. They never caught the perp. He had taken dozens of theft reports over the years from the inside of the temple for lots of other stuff too mostly wallets. Lots of people who were just going to a sealing would leave phones and keys in their shoes and who knows who sees them do that??? Maybe a temple worker ? come back from sealing and your keys and phone are gone but your cheap Jc penny shoes are still there. Anyway doesn’t seem like it happened too often but he and another guy would get the calls from temple security because the had recommends and could go in the main  temple. Gentile cops had to go tske their report at the exterior security office .

Adding insult to injury people’s cars would get broken into on the outside. I’m sure those perps were not temple goers but one never knows. 
 

the locks are there to keep people from getting their belongings stolen, not so a geriatric can find their stuff. 

[Chum]

On 9/25/2023 at 4:51 PM, Calm said:

Men generally do know more about how stuff works in my experience.

Can you expound on this?

[Nofear]

10 hours ago, juliann said:

In other words, faith is just as effective as priesthood.

Indeed, all the non-saving priesthood blessings can be replicated by faith. So, I've sometimes wondered why, for example, why have a priesthood blessing of healing when with enough faith we could be healed without the priesthood blessing?
My current answer to the question has two facets:
1. Sometimes it is easier for individuals to manifest faith in the seen (ie the priesthood holder) than the unseen (God)
2. Priesthood power can be used to supplement the requisite faith

That doesn't address any of the gender issue though.
 

[Diamondhands69]

1 minute ago, Nofear said:

Indeed, all the non-saving priesthood blessings can be replicated by faith. So, I've sometimes wondered why, for example, why have a priesthood blessing of healing when with enough faith we could be healed without the priesthood blessing?

Esp when we are told we will not change the will of the Lord and also we need to have faith to not be healed. Kinda renders the priesthood blessing as a bit useless if whatever the predetermined outcome is won’t be changed. 

[ksfisher]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

I have always thought it was more about not accidentally putting items in the wrong locker, picking something up accidentally, forgetting something, as well as making it very easy to find one’s locker again.  How often are people going to forget which row and which cubicle locker is theirs when they come back?

I think you are right about this, but it is also an acknowledgment that we are all weak at times and have things we are working on.  There be someone who after opening the wrong locker, gives in to their own personal weakness and takes the wallet or watch or whatever.  The world is enough to try and overcome, we don't want to go placing temptation in people's way when simple precautions can be taken to mitigate that.

[MustardSeed]

9 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I think you are right about this, but it is also an acknowledgment that we are all weak at times and have things we are working on.  There be someone who after opening the wrong locker, gives in to their own personal weakness and takes the wallet or watch or whatever.  The world is enough to try and overcome, we don't want to go placing temptation in people's way when simple precautions can be taken to mitigate that.

For me personally having a lock allows me to feel comfortable leaving valuables and not being distracted during my service at the temple even the 90% of me feels comfortable that nobody would take anything. 

[Amulek]

18 hours ago, tagriffy said:

It seems to me the question is whether it is necessary to go to the extreme separating the sexes in adulthood in order to achieve the goal of mitigating temptation.

I don't know. Given that proximity is often the initial source of an affair, cautioning a married man to avoid spending lots of time alone with a woman other than his wife seems like fairly common sense advice to me.

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Amulek
duplicate words...

[Malc]

28 minutes ago, Diamondhands69 said:

31 minutes ago, Nofear said:

Indeed, all the non-saving priesthood blessings can be replicated by faith. So, I've sometimes wondered why, for example, why have a priesthood blessing of healing when with enough faith we could be healed without the priesthood blessing?

Esp when we are told we will not change the will of the Lord and also we need to have faith to not be healed. Kinda renders the priesthood blessing as a bit useless if whatever the predetermined outcome is won’t be changed. 

I've often wondered about the concept that by prayer or whatever other means one might cause a god to change their mind.

[ksfisher]

56 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

For me personally having a lock allows me to feel comfortable leaving valuables and not being distracted during my service at the temple even the 90% of me feels comfortable that nobody would take anything. 

That's another good point.  I've always enjoyed how I forget all my problems when attending the temple.

This can apply to the discussion earlier about mixing male and female clerks and bishopric members.  Clerks and members of the bishopric spend a lot of time together, sometimes behind closed doors.  I could imagine one of the spouses wondering what was going on when the door was closed, even if nothing was.

[Nofear]

1 hour ago, Diamondhands69 said:

Esp when we are told we will not change the will of the Lord and also we need to have faith to not be healed. Kinda renders the priesthood blessing as a bit useless if whatever the predetermined outcome is won’t be changed. 

I have seen many times in bishropic or ward councils and elsewhere where we are tasked with coming up with a plan to further the Kingdom on such and such a front. In pretty much every scenario our plans are inferior to what an omniscient, omnibenevolent being would do.  Nonetheless, God often will respect and sustain the ward council so long as the plans are not directly contradictory to His designs. Same principle applies to priesthood blessings. Priesthood power is a very real thing. Useless is not an adjective I would use to describe it.

While fear may be the antithesis of faith, cynicism is no ally of faith either.

[Nofear]

9 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

That's another good point.  I've always enjoyed how I forget all my problems when attending the temple.

This can apply to the discussion earlier about mixing male and female clerks and bishopric members.  Clerks and members of the bishopric spend a lot of time together, sometimes behind closed doors.  I could imagine one of the spouses wondering what was going on when the door was closed, even if nothing was.

I know a now-deceased former bishop who once shared with me his greatest regret during his tenure. One of his counselors and the relief society president were working very closely together on a certain project. They later committed adultery. Not his fault, certainly, but he regrets not have doing more to help avoid the situation.

It's the edge of the cliff scenario.

Quote

“A man was interviewing new drivers for his transportation company. The route was very dangerous and went along several steep cliffs through a mountain pass. The interviewer asked each man how close he could safely drive near the edge of the cliff. The first man responded, “I could drive within six inches of the edge.” The second man responded, “I could drive within two inches of the edge.” The third man responded, “I would stay as far away from the edge of the cliff as I possibly could.” (Aaronic Priesthood Manual, lds.org).

Sometimes an abundance of caution can be detrimental (e.g. Saudia Arabia and burqas) but other times it is prudent. Reasonable people can disagree on where to draw the line.

[bluebell]

32 minutes ago, Nofear said:

I know a now-deceased former bishop who once shared with me his greatest regret during his tenure. One of his counselors and the relief society president were working very closely together on a certain project. They later committed adultery. Not his fault, certainly, but he regrets not have doing more to help avoid the situation.

It's the edge of the cliff scenario.

Sometimes an abundance of caution can be detrimental (e.g. Saudia Arabia and burqas) but other times it is prudent. Reasonable people can disagree on where to draw the line.

It's a little amazing to me the number of bishops and RS presidents that I have heard of who have had affairs.  

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Chum said:

Can you expound on this?

Women in my experience don’t know who does what, who they are to ask when they need something, or what is going on behind the scenes, especially at a stake level while men are more likely to, especially if they have served in a presidency or bishopric or have been a high counselor.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Calm

[Rain]

17 minutes ago, bluebell said:

It's a little amazing to me the number of bishops and RS presidents that I have heard of who have had affairs.  

It would be interesting to see how it compares to men and women working closely together in other churches.  

[Calm]

2 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

For me personally having a lock allows me to feel comfortable leaving valuables and not being distracted during my service at the temple even the 90% of me feels comfortable that nobody would take anything. 

This is why I use a lock at the gym even though even if stuff got stolen it would be no big deal as I don’t bring anything valuable.  I just don’t want to have even a vague thought about it.  Once the lock goes on, it is out of my mind until I am unlocking it.

[Rain]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

Women in my experience don’t know who does what, who they are to ask when they need something, or what is going on behind the scenes, especially at a stake level while men are more likely to, especially if they have served in a presidency or bishopric or have been a high counselor.

I know in my stake the past SP didn't have stake councils, interviews with SRSP etc. so many things even for the women's leaders were a surprise. Our current one is at least having stake council.

[bluebell]

13 minutes ago, Rain said:

It would be interesting to see how it compares to men and women working closely together in other churches.  

I'm not sure how many other churches have the same time commitments for their church jobs as our time-hungry leadership callings do but if there was a way to compare apples to apples that would be super interesting.

[bluebell]

22 minutes ago, Rain said:

I know in my stake the past SP didn't have stake councils, interviews with SRSP etc. so many things even for the women's leaders were a surprise. Our current one is at least having stake council.

That's crazy.  There should really be some recourse members have when leaders aren't following handbook policy.

[bluebell]

36 minutes ago, Rain said:

It would be interesting to see how it compares to men and women working closely together in other churches.  

A quick look on the internet shows that pastors are having affairs with the women in their churches (such as those they are counseling or working with) a lot more than I thought.  Some studies put the number at 40%.  Judging from the websites I'm seeing it's a big problem.

[pogi]

2 hours ago, Amulek said:

I don't know. Given that proximity is often the initial source of an affair, cautioning a married man to to avoid spending lots of time alone with a woman other than his wife seems like fairly common sense advice to me.

 

Proximity also happens to be the initial source of friendship and healthy social activity.  Healthy relationships between men and women is a good thing that shouldn’t be mitigated out of life out of life due to potential risk.  The vast majority of us are going to have working relationships with members of the opposite sex.  We shouldn't make it all taboo. 

There are potential risks with all good things in life, that doesn't mean that we should avoid those good things because a minority of people make unhealthy choices.   It feels overly controlling with unhealthy dominion.  Again, the parent child dynamic shows up.   I like the idea of being taught correct principles and let people govern themselves.  Let people decide for themselves if they are able to have healthy relationships with the opposite sex.   Some will mess up.  Others will grow because of it and gain new diversity of perspectives in those roles.   Isn't that what life is supposed to be?  

Edited September 27, 2023 by pogi

[Rain]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I'm not sure how many other churches have the same time commitments for their church jobs as our time-hungry leadership callings do but if there was a way to compare apples to apples that would be super interesting.

I would guess many of them have a heavier time commitment as it is often their jobs.

[BlueDreams]

3 hours ago, Amulek said:

I don't know. Given that proximity is often the initial source of an affair, cautioning a married man to avoid spending lots of time alone with a woman other than his wife seems like fairly common sense advice to me.

 

I would probably say the biggest source of the affair is issues in the marriage and/or issues with the cheating person that aren't being addressed. Cheating's just an expression of an underlying problem. 

 

People who know how to healthily work through problems, have a mature attitude around relational boundaries, etc very rarely cheat. 

 

Personally when I see/hear this I think of that time that I was meeting with my bishop on the regular to discuss sexual concerns that may come up in a ward multiple times and alone. Or the many times I've worked with men alone about their emotional and sexual issues. Or the emails I send my male boss. Or the plethora of other ways I work closely with men. There's never been a serious concern for me. The only time there's been a problem for their end is when I'm working with clients who struggle with sexual/emotional boundaries in general. Keeping them away from the opposite sex doesn't fix that. If anything it delays their maturation and confrontation of unhealthy behaviors/cognitions they've held onto.

 

With luv, 

BD 

Edited September 27, 2023 by BlueDreams

[bluebell]

32 minutes ago, Rain said:

I would guess many of them have a heavier time commitment as it is often their jobs.

Definitely I agree. I was more thinking about a time commitment plus them working together with someone of the opposite sex. Like a pastor has a huge time commitment but I don’t know of an equivalent female-based church job that  a pastor would routinely be spending large amounts of time with (so that we could compare that relationship with the relationship that would exist if men and women members were working in presidencies together, for example).

I just don’t know enough about other churches,, and the way their church jobs work, to know how to find an apples to apples comparison to look into. 

[pogi]

8 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Definitely I agree. I was more thinking about a time commitment plus them working together with someone of the opposite sex. Like a pastor has a huge time commitment but I don’t know of an equivalent female-based church job that  a pastor would routinely be spending large amounts of time with (so that we could compare that relationship with the relationship that would exist if men and women members were working in presidencies together, for example).

I just don’t know enough about other churches,, and the way their church jobs work, to know how to find an apples to apples comparison to look into. 

Probably the closest comparison would be to the community of Christ.   They have a similar structure to ours but have ordained women, and so have an organization where each sex is required to work closely with members of the opposite sex in leadership roles.   There are women apostles working closely with men apostles.  Locally, they have pastors (man or woman) who work closely with members of the opposite sex in leadership roles such as finance and other priesthood callings.  A member of the Seventy (man or woman) has been "teamed" with an apostle (man or women).   It appears there are pairs of men and men, women and women, and also men with women, or women with men.    

Community of Christ membership and field organization - Wikipedia

[Calm]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

There should really be some recourse members have when leaders aren't following handbook policy.

And a teaching of what that policy is somewhere….though the Church is so much better getting the info accessible now.