Here is an excerpt from a conversation I had, to the best of my memory:
Friend: "Why don't we read or hear more about Heavenly Mother?"
Me: "I think the reason is because...why are you doing that?" (The friend I was talking to had raised her hands to her ears as if to improve her hearing, in a histrionic, playful fashion.)
Friend: "Because I want to hear you say what EVERYONE else says—God doesn't reveal anything about Her because He doesn't want Her to be disrespected."
Me: "Actually, I was going to say that we don't hear much about Her because our mortal experience, our salvation here, is not Her job."
My friend did not like that answer very much. Aside from Eliza R. Snow's hymn, "O My Father," and the words "Heavenly Parents" in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, we have no direct canonical references to Heavenly Mother. If we learn about Her, it must be through the same means that Eliza R. Snow mentions in her hymn—reason. We must read between the lines, infer, see implications, follow the dominoes of syllogistic lines of reasoning. If God is veiled from us in a cloud of mystery, His Partner is doubly veiled. Why the cover-up? And why do we not worship or pray to Her?
Concerned women were asking such questions online recently, and I take this moment to chime in and give my response here.
President Uchtdorf said, "God the Eternal Father did not give that first great commandment because He needs us to love Him. His power and glory are not diminished should we disregard, deny, or even defile His name. His influence and dominion extend through time and space independent of our acceptance, approval, or admiration.
"No, God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love God!
"For what we love determines what we seek.
"What we seek determines what we think and do.
"What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become.
"We are created in the image of our heavenly parents; we are God’s spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love—it is part of our spiritual heritage. What and how we love not only defines us as individuals; it also defines us as a church. Love is the defining characteristic of a disciple of Christ" (The God of Love, October 2009 General Conference). Notice the mention of "parents."
Worship is for our benefit, not God's; it is not to make us feel good about being male or female. We pray to God and worship Him because He is the One, along with Christ and the Holy Ghost, charged with getting us out of the telestial pigsty we live in. When someone is baptized, the person performing the ordinance says, "Brother/Sister ________, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." He then lays the person down in the water, and brings them back up again. As Jack Christensen quipped in one of my institute classes, "There was no second-string Savior," no substitute to perform the Atonement if Jesus decided to back out or quit. Jesus Christ is the only Savior. "And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent" (Mosiah 3:17).
Regardless of what beloved friends or family we left behind premortally, we can only look one place for salvation while we are here. I believe that if we could establish direct communication with Heavenly Mother, she would immediately redirect us to Father. Why? Because there is no one else for us to hold onto in order to be pulled to safety. This life is spiritually perilous; it is like walking a tightrope with Satan hurling rocks and rotten tomatoes at us the whole time. A firm grip on our covenants made with God, His Son, and the power of the Holy Ghost, is all we have to stabilize us and bring us safely back. There will be a whole eternity to spend with Mother; for now, focusing on anyone but Christ (we covenant weekly in the sacrament to "always remember him") would be a potentially dangerous preoccupation.
We worship and pray to God because of the urgency of holding to the Father and Christ and none else. We follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost back to them, and they escort us back to heaven. Till then, as Paul says, we are in peril every hour. Just as Peter's focus on the Savior allowed him to walk on the water, our focus on the Savior will bring us across the gulf of misery. THEN the reunion Sister Snow envisions can occur:
"When I leave this frail existence...Father, Mother, may I meet you In your royal courts on high?...Let me come and dwell with you."
Friend: "Why don't we read or hear more about Heavenly Mother?"
Me: "I think the reason is because...why are you doing that?" (The friend I was talking to had raised her hands to her ears as if to improve her hearing, in a histrionic, playful fashion.)
Friend: "Because I want to hear you say what EVERYONE else says—God doesn't reveal anything about Her because He doesn't want Her to be disrespected."
Me: "Actually, I was going to say that we don't hear much about Her because our mortal experience, our salvation here, is not Her job."
My friend did not like that answer very much. Aside from Eliza R. Snow's hymn, "O My Father," and the words "Heavenly Parents" in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, we have no direct canonical references to Heavenly Mother. If we learn about Her, it must be through the same means that Eliza R. Snow mentions in her hymn—reason. We must read between the lines, infer, see implications, follow the dominoes of syllogistic lines of reasoning. If God is veiled from us in a cloud of mystery, His Partner is doubly veiled. Why the cover-up? And why do we not worship or pray to Her?
Concerned women were asking such questions online recently, and I take this moment to chime in and give my response here.
President Uchtdorf said, "God the Eternal Father did not give that first great commandment because He needs us to love Him. His power and glory are not diminished should we disregard, deny, or even defile His name. His influence and dominion extend through time and space independent of our acceptance, approval, or admiration.
"No, God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love God!
"For what we love determines what we seek.
"What we seek determines what we think and do.
"What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become.
"We are created in the image of our heavenly parents; we are God’s spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love—it is part of our spiritual heritage. What and how we love not only defines us as individuals; it also defines us as a church. Love is the defining characteristic of a disciple of Christ" (The God of Love, October 2009 General Conference). Notice the mention of "parents."
Worship is for our benefit, not God's; it is not to make us feel good about being male or female. We pray to God and worship Him because He is the One, along with Christ and the Holy Ghost, charged with getting us out of the telestial pigsty we live in. When someone is baptized, the person performing the ordinance says, "Brother/Sister ________, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." He then lays the person down in the water, and brings them back up again. As Jack Christensen quipped in one of my institute classes, "There was no second-string Savior," no substitute to perform the Atonement if Jesus decided to back out or quit. Jesus Christ is the only Savior. "And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent" (Mosiah 3:17).
Regardless of what beloved friends or family we left behind premortally, we can only look one place for salvation while we are here. I believe that if we could establish direct communication with Heavenly Mother, she would immediately redirect us to Father. Why? Because there is no one else for us to hold onto in order to be pulled to safety. This life is spiritually perilous; it is like walking a tightrope with Satan hurling rocks and rotten tomatoes at us the whole time. A firm grip on our covenants made with God, His Son, and the power of the Holy Ghost, is all we have to stabilize us and bring us safely back. There will be a whole eternity to spend with Mother; for now, focusing on anyone but Christ (we covenant weekly in the sacrament to "always remember him") would be a potentially dangerous preoccupation.
We worship and pray to God because of the urgency of holding to the Father and Christ and none else. We follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost back to them, and they escort us back to heaven. Till then, as Paul says, we are in peril every hour. Just as Peter's focus on the Savior allowed him to walk on the water, our focus on the Savior will bring us across the gulf of misery. THEN the reunion Sister Snow envisions can occur:
"When I leave this frail existence...Father, Mother, may I meet you In your royal courts on high?...Let me come and dwell with you."
