Exponent II's Blog, page 113

You are Enough and the Work of Heavenly Mother

I could not give up anything for Lent this year. The last two years were full of sacrifices and situations beyond my control. Instead I chose to repeat the phrase “you are enough” daily and hope to once again become comfortable with my worth and value.

Before the pandemic, I started to believe that I was enough and regularly drew on the strength of being confident in my enoughness. The anxiety of the pandemic and uncertainty for the future burned away that confidence. I was back to a beginning I had hoped never to see again.

For most of my life, I have not known that I was enough. I was continually reminded at home and at church that my efforts to be a good person would never look like the perfection that God required. Even Jesus wasn’t enough for salvation, which required additional ceremonies, unequal covenants, and the wearing of uncomfortable underwear night and day until death. It would all end with a reward that strongly indicated women, as a group, were not enough.

This not enoughness emanated from an image of God as Heavenly Father. He was never satisfied, didn’t understand my circumstances, couldn’t make allowances or exceptions, and held a great deal of disdain for my humanity. He created my humanity and then declared that it would never be enough. Only perfection would be enough, though it was incompatible with my human nature and He knew that when he created me. Heavenly Father was a hungry tyrant always laying down tests of loyalty and increasingly required more sacrifice, which never seemed to bring the blessings of health and wealth that He promised. This Heavenly Father loves a show of masculine strength, has little time for the weak, and sends emissaries who do the same, without apology.

So when Mormons of all genders talk about, write about, pray to, and seek for Heavenly Mother, what they are saying is that they have huge, gaping God-wounds. They are saying that they need the love of a God who loves them with a love that that is loving. They are saying that they are exhausted with attempts to please a Heavenly Father who is not inclined to recognize their efforts as valuable. Heavenly Mother isn’t a weapon, She is a bandage for souls in need of divine medicine. She tells her seekers you are enough because she is not worshipping a hollow image of a narcissistic bully god. She is tending to those who have been pushed out and marginalized, because she knows what we experience and feel. She is with us in our pain. She celebrates with us in our joy.

So on this Easter morning, remember that She sent her Son. Whatever we may or may not believe about Jesus, they are both in the business of liberation. The first work of liberation She can perform in our lives is to tell you you are enough.

This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.

Guest Post: An Open Letter to Elder Oaks: Is Heaven to Be a Lonely Place?

Guest Post by Christina Taber-Kewene. Christina is a lawyer, business owner, writer, and mother to four humans. 

Dear Elder Oaks, I have a few thoughts for you, one lover of human agency to another:

One of the traditional Christian doctrines Joseph Smith rejected when he was working out his beliefs was predestination. At the time, many Christian sects, including the the Presbyterians Joseph heard preach, believed God chose His elect for salvation regardless of human action. Any allowance for human agency would limit God’s ability to choose whom He saved, so free will was an illusion. Any religion that truly believes in divine omniscience and omnipotence will run into the logical problem that humans don’t truly have free will because an all-knowing, all-powerful God can’t create beings who can choose against what God wills them to do. Some Christian sects still preach this, regardless of what is “on the books.” Mormons definitely don’t.

Mormon theology elegantly avoids the free-will problem by having a God limited by human agency; in other words, our choices matter, and the only way they can matter logically is if our God has limitations and is neither all knowing nor all powerful. It’s one of mainstream Christianity’s principal objections to Mormon theology: how can we claim to be good Christians if our God has limitations? But the Mormon theology of human agency is too robust for this. We believe our choices in this life are real and that they matter.

Elder Oaks, when I was a young person, I accepted with only some hesitation what you and others preached about homosexuality: God has ordained sexual behavior as a positive within marriage only, and it is our actions around sexuality for which we will be held accountable. At first I too believed that we all were equally situated and must simply contain our sexual expression until a time when we found ourselves in a married state. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with being homosexual, nor was there anything sinful about my being straight and single. We all had to keep it together until marriage. (I know you probably wouldn’t even say homosexuality is a state, and is instead a temptation, but out of respect for my gay siblings, I will not use that language).

But, as a straight woman, I could get married. In fact, I did. So did you– twice, right? A false equivalence between our states and those of our gay siblings if ever there was one. Although our gay siblings finally can be married under law in the US, they cannot do so and be in good standing in the church. I am embarrassed to admit that it took me until adulthood to disentangle doctrine from indoctrination and conclude that your teachings about homosexuality didn’t make sense in light of our shared views on agency. In other words, we cannot compare acting on homosexuality to acting on heterosexuality when heterosexual people can marry those to whom they are sexually attracted but our homosexual friends cannot and remain in the church.

I know the counterargument: The next life will resolve all of this! Our brothers and sisters who “struggle with same-sex attraction” need only wait to have God straighten this all out later. I suppose I could give some credence to that argument if you and the other people propagating it held yourselves to the same standard. But you don’t. I didn’t. I didn’t wait until after death to marry and have a family, nor did you. I cannot in good conscience hold others to a higher standard than I hold myself. I cannot believe that I am destined for a higher state of glory because I am differently situated in my birth than someone else. It “makes reason stare,” to quote Sister Snow.

So what do we do in light of this logical fallacy? I turn to what Jesus taught:

As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciple, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)

When my son came out several years ago, all I felt for him was love. Yes, love from my own heart, but more powerfully, love from God. Nothing is wrong with this child, God whispered to me, overwhelming any concerns I might have once had. Love him.

Love, to me, and I think to you too, is action. We cannot speak love out of our mouths and act out exclusion and hatred with our hands and pens and money. We cannot speak of promoting agency while ignoring that not all of us face the same option set from which to choose. Love is seeking to make the world a welcoming and good place for everyone and recognizing that not all are the same as you.

Perhaps because you are not a mother you cannot understand how precious every human life is, how much effort it takes to create and nurture and preserve. I am not willing to lose one of my own children or any one of God’s children to suicide because of the homophobic and transphobic messages you are sending to them. By arguing that my child can “qualify” for eternal life only by obedience to your interpretation of God’s eternal plan, you are by definition excluding him from a path, regardless of the fact that you argue it is open for all. It is not. We know how damaging the church’s decades-long efforts have been to box gender non-conforming and gay people into heterosexual marriage. Only recently has the church begun to oppose conversion therapy after decades of supporting and promoting it.

I have one final thought on predestination. Doesn’t telling our gay children that the only way to return to God is to follow a plan that doesn’t make room for them remind you of the doctrine of predestination that you and I both reject? If homosexuality, gender variance, or anything that is not your own experience is a state some are born to but which God does not “elect,” doesn’t that make God an omniscient and omnipotent rejector of a class of persons? I cannot—do not—believe in that God. I don’t think you do either.

The Story of He

I posted this poem a little over a year ago. Not publicly, of course. Instead, I posted it in a Mormon Feminist group, where it could safely reach some without creating discomfort for others.

How I felt at church today:

She listened

To hear “her” named;

The “I” narrating Her own life.

Her’s.

A mother.

A sister.

God, in, of, and through women.

The story of She.

But she found only”Him” named.

The “I” narrating His own life –

– And hers;

All his.

A father.

A brother.

God in, of, and through men.

The story of He.

I came across it today by accident while searching for something totally unrelated. In light of the latest LDS Conference Broadcast for Women (By Men), where men cautioned women against praying to our Heavenly Mother and even seeking Her, finding it again felt serendipitous.

I wanted to voice this yearning for Her a year later; to declare it publicly.

However you seek the feminine divine: whether by focusing on both the named and unnamed women in scripture, by praying for more of Her, by reading the words of inspirational women, by sending letters asking apostles and prophets for revelation, through quite contemplation, by sharing your feelings with friends, by pointing out inequalities at church, through poetry, by capitalizing and speaking Her name; know that you are not alone in your yearning and seeking Her is a beautiful, sacred thing.

Guest Art: You Are Enough

Guest art by Lauren Walke, an illustrator living amongst the folklore and trees of Appalachia. She creates art based on ritual, stories, and the aspects that call (loudly) to her. More information on her and her work can be found at 9sirenscreative.com.

After Jeffrey R. Holland’s address at BYU that targeted LGBTQ+ individuals with metaphorical “musket fire,” I felt the need to depict a more accurate truth rather than a personal opinion. Jesus preached love. Not love that is conditional. Not love that comes with the judgment of the individual or their choices. Just love.

This image came to me clearly and felt very pressing. I immediately set aside time and began working on it. Unlike most of my work, this piece came out effortlessly, all the details and emotion falling into place. I knew it was because this message needed to be shared. The message that you, as you are, are enough. You are loved. You are worthy. You are good. That your Heavenly Mother and Father recognize and love you for your inherent and authentic self.

You Are Enough, 2021, Watercolor, gouache, and gold ink illustration

This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.

Guest Post: Luke Skywalkers

Guest Post by Anonymous. 

Many of society’s complex problems can be simplified with math. Criminal justice, for example, is essentially a problem of false positives and false negatives. In an ideal world, the criminal justice system would label each defendant’s guilt correctly: always imprison the guilty and never imprison the innocent.

But in the real world, two types of errors will inevitably occur: false negatives, in which one fails to identify someone as a legitimate risk, and false positives, in which one incorrectly labels someone as a risk.

Richard Berk, a professor of criminology and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania, has helpful language for these two types of errors. False negatives are when you liberate the Darth Vaders of the world while false positives are when you imprison the Luke Skywalkers. Either error can cause pain if you or a loved one are affected.

Temple recommends are also concerned with this same problem of false positives and false negatives. In order to determine if someone is “worthy” or at least striving to live a life in Christ, temple recommend interviews ideally allow us to open temple doors to anyone seeking to live a life in Christ and close them to anyone who is not. But in the real world, we make errors—letting Darth Vaders in while keeping Luke Skywalkers out.

My brother is being kept out. He went through a painful divorce complete with court battles and alimony disputes. When the judge initially ruled on his alimony payments, the amount was based on his salary. But since then, a move and new job came with a significant pay cut. And try as he might, he could not get the courts to decrease his alimony obligations and was legally required to pay two-thirds of his salary to his ex-wife.

Faced with some serious budget constraints, my brother had to decide how to allocate his funds. In doing so, he had to choose whether to be a full tithe payer, whether to act on his obligations to his ex-wife and whether to provide living necessities for his new wife and family. Under these constraints, he was literally unable to meet all his obligations.

In being interviewed for his temple recommend, and with the desire to be sealed in the temple to his new wife, my brother could not give affirmative answers to questions about tithing and financial obligations to former spouses. His characteristic honesty would not allow it. And so he was denied a recommend. To make matters even more difficult, though his ex-wife had unmet financial obligations to my brother, she retained her temple recommend. It seemed immensely unfair.

My brother believes in the doctrines of the temple and wants to be there. As one who values Christ’s teachings, he more frequently invokes the table-flipping Jesus than the gentle, chick-gathering Jesus. In the temple, Jesus was not okay with sacred spaces being corrupted by unreachable monetary barriers which excluded the poor. My brother’s entreaties for both justice and mercy in his case were his own form of table-flipping.

The relationship between me and my brother has not often been easy. He can behave aggressively and offensively when he believes he’s in the right. Tact is not his forte. From what I can tell, his interactions with his local church leadership regarding his temple recommend have been similarly confrontational and I have sympathy for his leaders who are not getting paid nearly enough for their service. And while I likely don’t understand the full picture, at least on the basis of his financial situation and the relevant temple recommend interview questions, I think my brother is a Luke Skywalker.

Temple recommend interviews, like criminal justice, are a form of judgment. Darth Vaders will squeak through. Though they might abuse family members, be unfaithful to their spouses, steal money from their employers or elderly neighbors, they may simply lie their way through all the questions. With suspect intentions and motivations, they may seek a temple recommend just for show. And they will often get it.

Luke Skywalkers will also sit for interviews. I imagine some scrupulous candidates confess to eating grapes from their shopping carts before paying or to accidentally eating a coffee-flavored jelly bean. Others probably confess to all the myriad ways they fall short of perfection, or like my brother, articulate the ways they are unable to meet all that is expected of them—in some cases at no fault of their own. Some of these Luke Skywalkers will leave without a temple recommend.

To minimize these two types of errors, there are some potential solutions. For the Darth Vader errors, we could do some investigative work. We could interview family members and friends to corroborate answers about relationships and Christ-like living. We could give tests. We could analyze bank statements and tax forms to check on tithing status, or perform blood tests and health screenings to confirm Word of Wisdom adherence. But not only could this approach increase Luke Skywalker errors, this obsession with law could quickly become a bureaucratic nightmare and lead us down a completely pharisaical path.

On the other hand, we could work to eliminate all the Luke Skywalker errors if we acknowledged that we’re all imperfect and simply gave everyone temple recommends who wanted them. Like Oprah giving out cars, we could say, “You get a temple recommend! You get a temple recommend!” As with our churches, we could welcome all. We could rightly recognize that people will have right or wrong motivations for attending the temple, and be resolved that letting in the Darth Vaders is a price we are willing to pay. We’ll leave judgment to God. It would not be a horrible option.

But lowering the bar so drastically might also come with a cost. Laws have the potential to point people to a life in Christ. Teaching my children to pay one of their ten dimes in tithing is a practical way to help them practice living generously and unselfishly. The law of chastity can likewise point people to a life of faithful, dedicated commitment. Having laws constraining temple participation encouraged my grandpa to finally kick his nicotine habit which had plagued him since he was six years old selling newspapers on the streets of small-town Idaho. Without law to point the way, I doubt my grandpa would have arrived at the healthier place he did—unencumbered by addiction.

I’ve heard people talk about their personal journeys toward the temple in this way—the temple as being the sacred place which encouraged them to turn towards Christ and participate more fully in His gospel. Jesus’ assurance that He didn’t come to abolish the law has more relevance, I believe, than simply to the Law of Moses. Many forms of religious law, including those for temple attendance, can point people to Christ.

In weighing the two errors, my personal belief is that there is more harm in the Luke Skywalker errors than the Darth Vader errors—and that belief has likely been influenced by my brother’s situation. But I’m cognizant of the mathematical and ethical dilemma.

My brother’s attempts to plead his case have so far been unsuccessful, and his leaders have been unable to help him see a plausible path forward. The frustration has led him and his family away from the church during the last few months, though it has not been his preference to leave a church where he believes in the doctrines but not in the people.

The sad reality, for me, is that it doesn’t need to be this way. I believe the Church’s approach could incorporate more breathing room and flexibility in cases such as my brother’s. We could have laws that point people to Christ while also being willing to creatively minister to the one when unique situations arise. We could be a little less exacting and take care not to unnecessarily and perhaps unintentionally squeeze out the Luke Skywalkers from our midst.

Guest Post: Our Missing Mother

Guest post by Louise Hammel, who writes at her desk while overlooking the pond beyond the window, sometimes hearing the waves of the Pacific crash on the other side of the nearby sand dunes. Paradise?  Like poetry, it’s all in the framing.

Our Missing Mother

Where is Heavenly Mother,
First mother of all living?
Where are the inscribed accounts of her creations–
The glowing maple tree in chilled autumn,
The lovely paradox of the lotus pond,
Summer berries that bleed red and purple.

Where are the stories
Of her dealings with her daughters?
Of her fierce love, her wisdom,
Her omniscience and omnipotence.
Where are the chronicles of her promises and covenants,
Her urgent words for us today?

Where are the revelations of her wild-woman heart,
More powerful than her patriarchal tamers?
When will knowledge of her be restored
In this, the restoration dispensation,
So that women, at long last, may see themselves
In their now-shadowy future.

Come, Immah, Mother,
Speak, make your welcomed-self known!
We stand together boldly,
Feet firmly and widely planted.
We yearn to hear and to remember your voice.
We hunger to know you, again.

This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.

Guest Post: Seeking the Divine as a Nonbinary Mormon

Guest post by Arawn Billings. Arawn is a transmasculine nonbinary artist whose works center the marginalized to help broaden perspectives and make spirituality a place of belonging. You can find his art and spiritual musings in the Church’s 11th and 12th International Art Contest galleries as well as on their website and instagram.

As I’ve learned is relatively common among transgender people, I was obsessed with understanding gender growing up. I studied popular texts and distilled the behaviors of those around me, looking for what inherent part of a person made them one of the binary genders. This obsession eventually brought me to study the theology around both Heavenly Mother and the Divine Feminine.

I was still seeking the answer to the gender question when I first began pondering over the BYU Study: A Mother There. I thought it would tell me the ideal traits of womanhood and how I could finally make peace with my assigned gender at birth. But it didn’t. Instead, I got the sense that if Heavenly Mother had once been a mortal, then She had come to Her own Godhood through perfecting who She was. Whatever She had been as a mortal, whether that had been a storyteller, healer, architect etc., She had perfected and mastered that. As I pondered this, I became more convinced that Her Godhood did not have to do with masculine and feminine traits, but godly traits.

Indeed, one of the frustrating things (for me at the time) about masculine and feminine traits, is that those traits are not possessed by just one of the binary genders. There may be patterns, but there are enough deviations from these patterns that they can’t really even be considered deviations. Thus I could not use a list of these traits to define gender. Additionally, from a religious standpoint, many religions, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, do not ask their members to develop a set list of masculine or feminine traits because it aligns with their gender. Instead, the Church asks all it’s members to develop traits that are Christlike. And that brings us to the example of Christ himself, whose ministry demonstrated many traits that would be considered feminine.

In turn, this begs the question, why is it necessary for our Heavenly Parents, or any eternal unit, to be made up of a binary cisgender man and woman. If the divine feminine and masculine can be developed in all of us, then the argument cannot be made that a heterosexual couple is needed to ‘balance’ these traits of masculine and feminine. In fact, I would argue I have never seen a heterosexual couple that demonstrates a balance of equal and opposite traits in all their aspects.

Also, do we believe that creation of spirits or, indeed, creation of any other kind requires the same conception method that is needed for mortal beings to be birthed? I find that concept bizarre and do not know of any doctrinal backing for such a belief.

What is more, why must our Heavenly Parents (or, again, any eternal unit) be one monogamous couple? Why must our Heavenly Family look like our concept of nuclear family, a fairly new and European concept? In a church that says it values familial ties throughout generations, why is there no space for a more expansive take on the Heavenly Family?

Do I know what our Heavenly Family looks like? No, but I have no qualms about speculating on this either. Most of the beliefs around our Heavenly Parents are speculation. They are just speculation based on the accepted cultural norms and so probably do not feel like speculation to those in that culture. I believe it is harmful to speculate when those speculations draw assumptions that hurt and exclude already marginalized groups. The Church’s history has an unfortunate amount of examples of this type of speculation that have made it to it’s policies and have been held up as doctrine. So I ask, what harm comes from making speculations that would include more of God’s children in our concept of the eternities?

And how will we receive revelation unless we are willing to consider concepts outside of our current understanding? Is it not a tenant of Mormon belief that revelation comes by asking questions with sincere intent?

So, coming back to my original question. The one that brought me on this quest. What defines a person’s gender? I have no empirical answers for you. I can only testify of my own gender identity as a transmasculine nonbinary person from my own inner knowing and revelation. It is a truth that has been spoken to my soul, and has been witnessed to me by my soul as well. And I think it is a fitting answer in a Mormon context, given that the Church puts so much stock in personal revelation and faith in things which cannot be seen, but are true.

And where does all this speculation leave me when it comes to worshiping and connecting with our Heavenly Parents? It certainly leaves a lot more gray in my relationship with deity, a relationship that has been my rock through a lot of difficult things. And even though these thought exercises are expansive and affirming, it is not easy to think of making changes to what is essentially the foundation of my life. It also has been confusing as I try to understand my experiences from a new lens of thought. Essentially the journey so far has been both incredibly uncomfortable and exciting.

As for my relationship with deity, I have chosen instead to focus on the energies of the Divine Feminine and Masculine. These energies are easier to recognize for me. It also allows me to not get too caught up in the exact identity of God. Are They female, male, nonbinary? Multiple parts of a Divine Family? In some aspects, why does it matter, if They are one in mind and purpose?

In other aspects, their potential for diversity is exactly why is matters. Expanding our concepts around our Heavenly Family makes space for those who are in the margins. It makes space for all the beautiful possibilities of humanity. Will shifting our thinking around this require effort, discomfort, time, and practice? Yes. But I think this is also one way of how we can push our concept of Heavenly Mother beyond the current cisgender heterosexual paradigm that too often surrounds Her.

This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.

Truth is Reason, Truth Eternal

Guest post by Lindsay Ragan (she/her). Lindsay spends her days raising three strong capable women. She enjoys listening to podcasts, jamming out to music with heavy beats and weird noises, and learning about Quickbooks. She lives in the midwest with husband, three daughters, and Scout, the dog she swore she’d never get but who is healing her cold hardened heart. 

I had heard rumors that someone was going to address the topic of Heavenly Mother in the 2022 Women’s General Session and to my surprise they were right! Elder Dale G. Renlund gave his talk “Your Divine Nature and Eternal Destiny”.

He didn’t say much about Heavenly Mother, however the bulk of my thoughts are going to focus on a quote that has been pounding in my head since I originally heard it, then played back, wrote down and played back again. The context of this influential quote comes from discussing the LIMITED information the Church has received about Heavenly Mother through the Prophets AND how others (the women he was addressing) may have more questions and want more answers. He said he did, too.

“Seeking greater understanding is an important part of our spiritual development, but please be cautious. Reason cannot replace revelation. Speculation won’t lead to greater spiritual knowledge, but it can lead us to deception or divert us and divert our focus from what has been revealed.”

Now I am sure some may see this quote and think, “He is an appointed, benevolent apostle and is trying to guide us like a trail guide warning us of pitfalls.” For me, the red flags start to fly. His warning feels like a shut down. He is patting our collective heads saying, “Don’t worry your pretty little heads with reason. Just follow the Prophet, HE knows the way.”

 The quote continues to be bothersome because of the warning against speculation. Speculate is defined as “the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.” I am immediately reminded of Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” To have or develop faith in something (especially unseen or without firm evidence) you have to form a theory or hope, in a word, speculate. I am being WARNED against developing faith in an unseen Heavenly Mother because it “can lead [me] to deception…and divert [my] focus from what has been revealed.” This makes no sense to me. 

What is the concerning deception we face seeking Her out on our own? What are they, the leaders of the church, asking us to be cautious of? What are they afraid of?

The Church says they value women, that the doctrine of Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father should level the playing field but it does not. This is illustrated in Elder Renlund’s talk. He quotes the first line of the YW Theme, “I am a beloved daughter of Heavenly Parents” he then shares, in the same breath, “HE loves you…. HIS love has always been there.” To Elder Renlund, God is Male. Only God the Father loves us. That is why we are commanded to only pray to HIM. This statement of his creates an image for me. It is like he is on a global stage showcasing Mother and Father and then steps in front of Her, and points his body and his focus on Him. We can still see Her, even while he is trying to divert our focus!

So again, what is the caution for? I think the reason for the caution isn’t really women (or anyone) seeking out Heavenly Mother. I think the issue Elder Renlund and other leaders of the church are concerned with is people thinking for themselves. Why else are they trying to control our worship? Why would anyone, prophet or not, have the AUTHORITY to tell someone else how to PRAY to God? They think they do. We are told through conferences and correlated lessons, “We’ll tell you how to believe/pray/worship and if you don’t believe/pray/worship like we said to, YOU are deceived and YOU must repent and get back on the covenant path (and NEVER leave it) and FOLLOW THE PROPHET! If you don’t, you are lost and give up your eternal destiny.” THIS. IS. MANIPULATION.

This indoctrination of “the Prophet knows the way” starts in Primary and continues on every single Sunday. Just this last conference members were told repeatedly that Russell M. Nelson is God’s Mouthpiece. That we must follow the leaders of the church because eternal blessings are at stake. Because following them is the “only real way to follow Christ,” no matter if what they say and do is unChristlike.

In my own journey I dealt with the struggle of knowing if I was deceived. My first personal experience with Heavenly Mother came unexpectedly. I had just read the BYU Symposium article “A Mother There” a few weeks before. The article had scoured historical Church texts and documented statements from Prophets and historical female members. I had thought of Her in theory my whole life, being told She is our precious Mother protected by Father and Son to shield Her from Her blasphemous children. I hadn’t really considered who She really was until referencing the article. That She is a God; She can handle a couple bazillion snotty teenager spirit children. Since my mind had been open to a more expansive and powerful view of Her, I was able to sense Her on my own level and in my own understanding. It was a beautiful and peaceful experience. Yet, fear crept in unprovoked. I had read the Gospel Topic essay Mother in Heaven. I had listened to President Hinckley stating how he regards “it as inappropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven.” So when I did, I felt like I was breaking a cardinal rule. I would then struggle to reconcile my personal experience and the teachings of the men of the church. I had heard about women being excommunicated for teaching about Heavenly Mother. Was I risking my beloved membership by cherishing and sharing this foundational experience? Was I really being deceived?

How can one know if they are being deceived? If someone is trying to tell you what and how to believe and that if you don’t you are deceived… that is a pretty good sign they are trying to manipulate or scare you into compliance. However, if you listen to that still small voice inside you, that is the part of you that is a part of God, you will be prompted. Like one who is prompted to not turn down x road, later to find a cliff, they recognize that as God guiding them. I believe we can be alerted spiritually, too.  When we hear or learn something that sparks the spiritual alert system, for example, “You are a beloved daughter of Heavenly Parents. HE loves you,” it is the doubt and the red flags that ARE the answers. When something doesn’t FEEL right in our heart or make actual sense in our mind, don’t put it on the shelf. THAT is God communicating with us. THAT is PERSONAL REVELATION. No one, including prophets, seers, revelators, can take that from you. For me like Eliza R. Snow wrote,  “Truth IS reason, truth eternal tells me I’ve a Mother there.”  And NO ONE will take Her from me. 

Finally a note. I don’t need my experience with God to be yours. There are some who don’t connect with the strictly gendered God. I am cool if your experience is nonbinary or more ambiguous. God is there for us to connect with.  God will tell you in YOUR heart (your spirit) and in YOUR mind (your reason) what is right and true for you.

This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.

I had the desire to connect with our Heavenly Mother but was it right to pray to her?

Guest Post: In the Womb: Heartbeat vs Voice

Guest post by Amy. Human Being. Mother of Two. Deep Thinker. Granddaughter of a Philosopher.

Points of Connection

While carrying my first child, I was minimally concerned about hearing the baby’s heartbeat. My unwritten, quite logical rule was that “Babies have heartbeats. Inside me, I am growing a baby. Of course we will hear the baby’s heartbeat.”  It really felt like that, and really fit into my world narrative.

The second time around, the unsuccessful quest for a heartbeat seared into my soul the innocence of my previous assumptions, and sanctified how hearing my baby’s heartbeat connected my baby to me. We went into the doctor’s office expecting to finally hear the heartbeat. Our hearts shattered temporarily over and over again when we heard no heartbeat, saw no baby on the ultrasound monitors, and eventually my body no longer carried traces of what might have been.

During my third pregnancy, a stethoscope was one of the main tools of reassurance that I cherished for a few months to reassure myself that my baby was “OK” and maintain that connection to my unseen baby. And yes, being the paranoid soul that I was, for a few months, I attempted to hear my baby’s heartbeat every few hours. My talismanic stethoscope was a figurative lifeline for those few months between when the baby’s heartbeat was strong enough to be heard through layers of skin, fat, and fluid and the baby could kick like a mule. It mattered.

Flourishing and Growth

Scientists have investigated and confirmed that babies can hear while still in the womb. Babies can hear the mother’s heartbeat, the mother’s voice, the mother’s digestive tract, and more distantly, the voices of others.  Any newborn provider can tell you that babies need to hear a heartbeat outside themselves. It matters.

Both baby and mother listen to each other’s heartbeats as a reassuring, sustaining point of connection. It matters enough to be a life or death point of connection that crosses gender, nationality, race, or religion lines.

We sometimes forget that, just as human tools can fail to pick up a baby’s heartbeat, the baby can still be flourishing and growing.  Conversely, a baby can flourish in utero despite not hearing a mother’s voice or identifying a mother’s heartbeat.  In both instances, other ways of describing and navigating reality are implemented as ways to connect.  Just because a heartbeat or voice is not heard one way or at one time, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

God as Life-Giver

Because of my parent/child (specifically mother/baby) relationship experience, I can easily try to imagine God as a parent, and myself as a child.  Things I learned as a parent I can transfer to God as a parent. Things I learned as a parent, as a nurturer, as a provider, transfer into what makes me secure, protected, and connected as a child. I thought I knew what God’s voice sounded like, and it connected me to God.

Until, one day, I wasn’t.  I didn’t hear God’s voice anymore as I understood it or as I expected it to sound like.

In my faith transition, I have felt keenly the absence of that Voice – the Voice I associated with God.  I have tried to analyze the loss of this Voice, to process/work through it, to wring meaning from it – to bargain it out of existence as it were. In doing all this, a part of my soul remembers the dense, immersive sensation of grief, of bawling my eyes out while listening in complete silence for that one quiet, steady sound that meant the world to me in that moment.  But another part of me is different.  It is cautiously hopeful and tentatively curious, while daringly tiptoeing around, asking different questions and coming to different conclusions.

New questions bubble to the surface of my thinking.  “What if there is the possibility that just because I no longer hear the Voice of God doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist or that God has dropped/disowned me?  What if I am not cut off?  Or what if I am, but everything is just fine?”. The most daring, almost counter-culture question that I have come up with is, “What if I am expecting God to communicate to me as methodically and as often as a baby hears a caregiver’s heartbeat, and the reality is that communication with God is less frequent and more intentional?  What if I should expect and normalize the times when God won’t be speaking to me?“

This is comforting to me.  As a sleep-deprived, child-carrying mother, I had hours on end when I wasn’t talking to my child because I was sleeping, working, thinking or doing something else that didn’t require prodding and talking at my expanding belly.  This wasn’t a crisis for either of us – my baby was sleeping and growing, and I was trying to sleep, provide my baby’s shelter,  and grow into a better human. So, I can easily relate to it not being a crisis that God isn’t talking to me – I can be in a comparative state of respite and growth while God could be running the universe and/or resting in a Godly rest, and/or advancing into a better God. The possibilities are endless.  A refreshingly new and paradoxically always existing status quo may be that both of us are connected but comfortably sile

But more importantly, I may be able to hear and identify God’s heartbeat in ranges outside of God’s Voice throughout the world.

What does God’s heartbeat sound like when I stop mistaking it for the Voice of God?

Guest Post: Heavenly Mother is Packing a Suitcase

Guest post by Ash Rowan (they/them, he/him), an autistic artist-poet, and a culturally Mormon Unitarian Universalist. This piece was written two years ago, in response to an interaction between the author and their daughter.

God sniffles, then wipes her nose with the back of one hand before folding up the rest of a gossamer sheet.

“MoOoOom,” I whine. “I’ll be fine. There will be BIRDS! And DOGS! It’s gonna be so much fun.”

“I know,” she says with a soft smile. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes, because all she can think about is how much I will miss Her.

“I know your family and friends will care for you well.” Already, she can see the faces of so many mentors and givers and receivers who will cross my path as I forge my way through a mortal journey. But can they listen and speak in my language, the way She does intuitively? Will they nurture and nourish me to Her exacting standard?

(She puffs out a low breath at that thought because while she won’t say it out loud, this is exactly why she’s glad to be getting a break from me. She needs some time to just lay in the quiet and be Herself again.)

“And I can talk to you all the time!!” I add, still running eager circles around her.

“Whenever you want,” she affirms with a measured tone, knowing that I will forget to check in for days or weeks or months at a time. Knowing that She will be completely lost to my view for the first quarter-century of my life.

A dark shadow clouds her expression.

When I pummel into her from the side and throw my arms around her, she lets out a little startled shriek, and then breaks into a grin. Her entire figure relaxes and descends to wrap tight around me, as I nuzzle into the frizzy curls of Her hair and breathe in deeply. She smells like home. Her hearty laughter enfolds me from all around.

She tells me, “Oh, I will miss you so,” and cups the curve of my cheek.

“I’ll miss you too, Momma,” I say earnestly, beaming up into her eyes. Then a heartbeat later, I’m already hurtling away again.

She smiles again at that. Then, inhaling deeply, she snaps my luggage shut and trails her fingers deftly along the canvas surface, as though imbuing it with some kind of magic.

At last, she hefts the bag up into her arms, and walks out of the room to find me.

“Are you ready?” she asks, and realizes that the question is more for her own benefit than for mine.

“Let’s go!” I yelp, and her heart swells while breaking just a little bit more.

This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.