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I've always believed in a Mother in Heaven. The possibility isn't something I ever studied, fretted about, or even bothered to debate with anyone. What would be the point?
Short of debating the merits of a color no one has ever seen, I can't think of a bigger waste of time than squabbling over religious doctrine.
Anyway, Mother in Heaven. Heavenly Father's partner. God's wife. Queen of the Eternal House. The serious power behind the throne. Having a mother in heaven just made sense.
I was in Mormon Primary when it first occurred to me that a leavening influence in the universe could be explained only by feminine intervention.
Proof of this was the day Leon, Duncan and I remained alive and boil-free after singing alternate and blasphemous lyrics to "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam."
We sang/brayed, "Jesus wants more chocolate ice cream; to eat up every day," and nothing happened except we got kicked out of Primary for a day.
There was some discussion among us about whether getting the boot was an actual punishment. I advocated loudly for it being a blessing in disguise, or I did until the Old Man got home.
In the exact moment that Mom kept her wrathful husband from chaining me to a tree for an entire weekend, I knew. Yeah, I knew there was a Mom Creator somewhere. There had to be. It explained so much.
For example, "love one another" is a definite Mother in Heaven thing. You don't get that sweetness out of a Creator who occasionally gets so fed up that he slaughters us.
The Great Flood? Yeah, I believe that happened when Heavenly Mom asked Heavenly Father to watch us while she ran some celestial errands.
Her: "I'll only be gone a few thousand years. Don't let them get into trouble."
Him: "Go already. I got it covered."
Heavenly Father had us covered all right. With water. Everyone but that suck-up Noah and his family. When Heavenly Mom came home and saw what happened, she threw a fit.
Her: "You idiot! Just look at this place!"
Him: "Well, they kept getting on my nerves. It's not like we can't create more."
And that, people, is how I think we got Jesus.
Think about it. The glaring differences in management styles between the Old Testament (fear-based faith) and New Testament (love-based faith) can be explained only by the workings of a Heavenly Marriage.
For example, the prophet Joshua slaughtering the entire inhabitants of Jericho a single city this time as opposed to the entire world is a mere cuff to the head from a fed-up Heavenly Father.
The Old Man got just like this on long family trips. After warning me a hundred times to stop tormenting my sister, he'd suddenly reach over the back of the seat and rap a knot on my head. I'm not complaining. It was better than making him so mad that he drove the car into a lake.
Mom handled things differently. She preached the equivalent of tolerance, explaining that those who thought their sister an insufferable wretch should cast the first stone.
Other examples? OK.
"Blessed are the meek." Mom.
"And it came to pass … the LORD smote all the firstborn." Dad
"Suffer the little children to come unto me." Mom
"And the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." Definitely Dad.
Believe what you want. As for me and my house, we hope that there will be two Supreme Creators sitting at the Judgment Bar.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby