The justifications we often hear for the cohabitation option amount to tired old clichés like “You wouldn’t buy a car until you’d driven it,” or “Well, we plan to make the commitment of marriage after we are sure it is going to work.” The problem with this logic is that what makes a marriage work is the commitment. Commitment is the start of a relationship that lasts, not the culmination of it. And the commitment of marriage is what lends security both to husband and wife and to the children that join them.
Our 16-year-old granddaughter, in response to last week’s article 4, and with a directness adults sometimes lack, asked the question “If there is a Heavenly Mother, how come she wasn’t part of the Restoration? Why didn’t she appear with Heavenly Father? Where has She been? Why don’t we know more about Her? Why don’t our Prophets talk more about Her?
Before we list seven possible, plausible possibilities (or answers to my granddaughter’s question) let me eliminate or wipe away one answer that has been given too often and that seems to me to be at best counterproductive and at worst insulting. “She is too special to talk about…in order to protect Her, information has been withheld…She is so sacred and so incomparably wonderful and beautiful that we cannot comprehend…” If none of those reasons would work with our Heavenly Father, they also cannot work with our equally important and powerful Heavenly Mother.
If we measure by the number of people directly affected, it is no contest. Estimates of the percentage of the U.S. population that is gay range between 2 and 4%. This leaves 96 to 98% heterosexuals, most of whom, seem to be devaluing or completely disregarding the value of marriage. The largest threat to our society and to our economy is not the way people define marriage but how enthusiastically and committedly they participate in it. Sadly, particularly among the Millennial generation, fewer and fewer get married while more and more choose the lower-commitment option of cohabitation.
Shut off your devices periodically. In fact, shut them off often. In fact, don’t even turn them on until you are ready to work, or to answer texts or emails or social media. Put yourself in charge of when you turn on, link in, and go on line, and don’t do it any oftener than you really choose to. Remember how easily technology and social media can fit the definition of appetite—first it appeals, then it begins to control us, then it becomes an obsession, and finally an addiction.
So, what are some more plausible potential reasons that we don't yet know a great deal about Her? We, as a Church and as a people and as individuals, have not asked about Her diligently enough. We know that God reveals in accordance with our inquiries rather than by His own initiative. He (They) are committed to our agency and will not violate it by initiating answers to questions we have not asked. Some feel that the revelation granting the Priesthood to all races could possibly have come sooner if the depth of pleading inquiry that President Kimball put forth had come sooner. We, as a society and as a culture, were not ready for the kind of paradigm contemplated by the implications of the equal Oneness of Heavenly Parents. A patriarchy has a hard time accepting or even fully grasping a Heavenly Mother who is a full and equal partner with Heavenly Father. Spiritual history is replete with truths that were revealed at a later rather than an earlier time, not because of the readiness of God, but because of the readiness of men. Virtually all of our recorded history and scripture was written by men and what they wrote is what was reflected through their own personal lenses. It is very possible that more could have been heard, observed, and manifest concerning Heavenly Mother than was ever recorded or explained. Christ is the God of this world. He is Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament as well as the Christ of the New Testament. Heavenly Father comes only very occasionally, and only to introduce His Son. Perhaps He could have been equally well introduced by Heavenly Mother, and He could have expressed and lived His full allegiance to Her, but we know that was not the case, and in faith we assume there was good reason for that order and reality. This mortality that we see and live in is just one act in a three-act play. It is possible that Heavenly Mother has a more prominent leading role in the first act of our premortal life and/or in the third act of the Spirit world and the judgement and the Millennium and the Celestial Kingdom. As was suggested earlier, 'God' and even 'Father' could be something of a surname that includes both Heavenly Parents, and though we (and the scripture's authors) spoke of seeing and speaking only to one, perhaps it has always actually been both. (This one from a friend who read a draft of this article) Maybe our Divine Mother's stewardship has more to do with the natural realm than the heavenly. We have referred to earth as 'Mother' since the beginning of time-the nurturer of abundant life and endless creativity. She was worshipped during ancient Biblical times (prior to the Deutoronomist reforms of King Josiah) in the temple and in common life as Asherah, symbolized by the tree of life. Evidently, she was a grounding, nurturing and very immediate presence in their lives. Could it be that it's the same with us today, but we just haven't figured out how to talk about it in our religion? What if we have been enjoying and feeling her presence since the beginning as we connect with creation. Maybe that communion with nature is a form of prayer. Perhaps if it's possible to access her presence through broken language at all, it would be the language of poetry or contemplation rather than petition. There's a beautiful complementarity and symmetry in this notion of the relationship and roles of our Divine Parents, in my opinion. And notice how it answers your granddaughter's questions about Her absence at the Joseph's vision: She WAS there 'in the grove' holding Joseph even when he was flat on his back almost overcome by darkness.
Be strong and fixed on the destination, but creative and flexible on the route.
The question is not whether we can anticipate, predict, and plan everything. We can't! The question is whether we will try to avoid, ignore, or push aside things not of our making, things which don't quite fit our plans . . . or will we relish them, embrace them, look for serendipity in them?
The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.
The justifications we often hear for the cohabitation option amount to tired old clichés like “You wouldn’t buy a car until you’d driven it,” or “Well, we plan to make the commitment of marriage after we are sure it is going to work.” The problem with this logic is that what makes a marriage work is the commitment. Commitment is the start of a relationship that lasts, not the culmination of it. And the commitment of marriage is what lends security both to husband and wife and to the children that join them.
Missing Reference