During the Open House for the newly constructed Los Angeles Temple, Ora Pate Stewart served as a Temple guide on January 12, 1956. An article she wrote for the California Intermountain News describes her experiences:
A Temple Guide Speaks…
From Where I Stood
By Ora Pate Stewart
For those of us who were
privileged to act as guides at the Temple on Thursday, January 12, it could be
said that we witnessed on a scale rather larger than miniature, the literal
gathering of Israel, when hundreds of people of Jewish ancestry gathered to go
through the Los Angeles Temple. To see the expressions upon their faces, to
hear their outbursts of appreciation and respect, was to feel a tugging at soul
roots; and we felt cultivated in our common ground.
“Thank you, thank you!” they
would whisper, “for the beauty and the peace.” And with my answering smile I
wanted them to hear, “And thank you – for Abraham and Moses, and the prophets,
and David, and your own beautiful Temple which you will restore someday soon.
And thank you mostly for the Bible. We are two branches in the hand of God. We
are thankful together!”
I stood at a most beautiful spot
where the lion and the lamb represented the peace of the Garden of Eden. Again
and again I was to hear, “And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.”
And sometimes one would add, “The time will come.” There seemed to be a
yearning in their faces for that time to come, and I felt a surging conviction
that communions of this kind will bring that time nearer, will hasten the day.
The beauty, the color, the
pureness of the art in that Garden Room are beyond the power of words to
describe. Surely the artist, Mr. Edward T. Grigware, was brushed with divine
inspiration. He has made it a garden where God could walk, and where Adam and
Eve might be seen, strolling in the cool of the evening. The little white lamb
is so without blemish that he might be the one selected for the first
sacrifice, after Adam and Eve had left the garden. But the garden would not be
the same without him.
As the people arrived at this
spot they reached for words to express the emotions that they could not
contain. “Beautiful,” and “marvelous,” were whispered from thousands of lips.
When words could not be found there were sobs that came from deep inside, and
sometimes prayers, a sentence at a time. When mature men and youths came by with
tears standing in their eyes or streaking down their cheeks, I felt the dry
place in my soul being watered.
“I don’t feel clean enough,” one
woman said. And “This is paradise,” expressed the feelings of hundreds.
Perhaps the climax of my day was
when a woman stopped directly in front of me and whispered in a voice weighted
with prayer, “Almighty God! This is heaven!” and collapsed into my arms with a
total loss of strength.
Not all the guests expressed the
same degree of appreciation for the same things. One lady with extra thick
glasses kept her eyes on the floor for the whole stretch, stopping from time to
time to dig her toes into the thick pile of the carpeting. She looked so much
like a mother hen scratching up newly planted kernels of corn, as she clucked
into her wing feathers, “Bee-ooo-tee-ful! Bee-ooo-tee-ful!” And my eyes
couldn’t help following her, like two small chicks. “Vhere did you get it, I
vunder!” she exclaimed, not once looking up from her wings. It turned out that
she was a carpet wholesaler from New York.
There was an interior decorator
who was most interested in the Celestial Room, and an architect who couldn’t
get beyond the spiral stair. Their comments came from the same press: “Where
did he study to come up with something like this? There is nothing else like it
in the whole world!”
Then there was the lady who was
not so much interested in the Temple as she was in the Mormons. “Are YOU a
Mormon?” she asked. “Yes, Ma’am.” “Is SHE a Mormon?” she continued, pointing to
the guide at the next station. “Yes, Ma’am.” “Are ALL of you guides in the
building Mormons?” “Yes, Ma’am.” “My goodness! There are a LOT OF YOU aren’t
there!” There were fifty-three of us. I guess she thought we were all the
Mormons there are.
All the visitors seemed to appreciate
the white satin chairs whose single decoration is the Star of David.
As they went down the stairway
into the outside there was one question heard above all others: “Where is the
green church?” “We want to hear more.” And they were directed to the Westwood
Ward Chapel where their questions were answered by their friend and ours, Rose
Marie Reid.
And I called after them
silently, “Come back again, Israel!” [1]
Regarding this Temple Open House experience, Ora’s friend
Victoria Craigie wrote the following letter to her (with an explanatory
paragraph in parentheses added by Ora):
(Victoria Craigie, wife of
Lieutenant-General Lawrence C. Craigie, Retired, USAF, long-time friend of the
author, wrote this moving description of her feelings after touring the Los
Angeles Temple. Mrs. Craigie is a member of the Christian Science Church, and
is a resident of Burbank, California. This letter, written to the author was
one – of many thousands received – chosen for the reprinting in the Pictorial
Edition Commemorating the Dedication of the Los Angeles Temple, March 8, 1956 –
California Intermountain News.)
Last Monday you took me, along
with several others, through the new Mormon Temple of Los Angeles.
I want to thank you, again, for
an experience that was completely different. I could say the usual things: I
could mention its magnificent size, architectural perfection, beauty of the
interior, and so on. These things are all true.
But, may I describe, instead,
the emotions it inspired, the memories it awakened, the thoughts that flowed
through my consciousness, as the great throngs moved – I with them – through
the vast building? In itself, that was something of a miracle, that such
numbers of people, including many children, could pass so quietly along. There
was no talking, only the sacred strains of music could be heard.
The mind moved in its own
footsteps. The exquisite colors and great murals fused and blended with mental
pictures of great and famous temples of the world. For, I have stood in Saint
Peter’s of Rome, in Santa Sophia of Istanbul, and in Notre Dame of Paris. In
far-off Japan, “the ultimate East,” I have shuffled, shoeless, through the
polished wooden corridors of Nikko, and stood staring in wonder at the thousand
and one Buddhas of Sanjusangendo.
Yet here, in Los Angeles, in
your temple, was another thing entirely, a new dimension. It was not the
magnificence, the beauty, the loving care that had gone into the planning and
the building of it, though, no doubt, that had something to do with the effect
it had on us, all of us, following our guide, quietly, respectfully.
It was something – and this is
the thing difficult to put into words – something which spoke to our hearts.
Particularly “The Rooms.” The Creation, which had captured the wild beauty of
fiery worlds, rolling through space. The Garden of Eden, where I caught
glimpses of all the beautiful places of the earth, which I have loved and left
behind me – the green beauty of a Japanese hillside – a rain-forest in Haiti or
Puerto Rico – the serenity of an Italian lake – the soft, golden light of
Greece – OH! Lovely, lovely world, not ours to keep! And, who has not known the
desolate stretches of fear and solitude, of remorse and regret painted into the
World Room? But, this only precedes the symbolic halls of “acceptance” and
“fulfilment.” Someone has said, “the promised land is always on the other side
of a desert.” One must know humility before experiencing exaltation – and what
calm joy and perfection is attained in the last of The Five Rooms. Here is
rest. Home!
Thank you, again, not only for
the privilege of seeing the structure of your great temple but also for the
thoughts and emotions it brought, followed by a great sense of peace, which
still remains.
With gratitude and love,
Victoria
This article marked the first time anyone had written about
the experiences of those participating in a Temple Open House. A follow up to
the original article from the Church Historian’s Office to the editor of the
paper, Ned Redding, reads:
Dear Brother Redding:
For sometime I have wanted to
write and tell you that your California Intermountain News is appreciated by us
in the Church Historian’s Office, as each issue contains valuable historical
information. We are watching with interest the events leading up to the dedication
of the Los Angeles Temple and your paper contains informative stories and
articles.
In the paper on Jan. 19th,
you published an article entitled “From Where I Stood” by Ora Pate Stewart.
This article was a classic and I wish Sister Stewart would write several more
of the same kind. We are all anxious to know the reaction of the many people
who are now visiting the Temple.
Thanks again for your splendid
publication, the California Intermountain News.
In 1960, Ora later published a book entitled “From Where I Stood”
through the Deseret Book Company, which included her article of the same name
and the letter from her friend Victoria Craigie, along with other stories and
experiences.
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