My Baby’s Mama
One of the teachers I worked with inside a state prison in Missouri would often complain that offenders would never use their wives’ names when talking about their families with other offenders. Instead, they would use the slang term “my baby’s mama.”
One day after hearing several such references she couldn’t take it any longer and began to rebuke her students, pointing out that those women had names, and how disrespectful it was for them to us the term “baby’s mama” instead of their names. After her tirade an offender approached her privately and explained that in the vile and disgusting place in which they were confined, the names of their wives were too precious to share, to meaningful to expose. That is why many chose the alternative title, it was to protect their wives.
Nina and I have had some deeply sacred and personal experiences with God. Some of which we have never shared with anyone, not even our children. There are pearls, sacred things, that simply should not be shared with others. That is part of why Jesus warned us about casting pearls before swine.
The existence, nature, sanctification, purpose, mission and role, of our Heavenly Mother is a deeply sacred and reverent thing. While the concept is consistent with, and even presupposed by our doctrine, it is not widely shared or discussed. That is God’s and Her prerogative.
It is human arrogance to attribute the few veiled references to a Heavenly Mother in the revelations from God, to some form of chauvinism or male dominance. If a weak sinful, criminal, serving time in a penal institution will refuse to share basic information about his wife in order to protect her from the profane, if the mere “to frequent” repetition of the name of God, led Him to change the name of His priesthood to Melchizedek, then why cannot it be that God’s reservations and relative quietness about so Holy, Exalted and Sacred a companion is actually a reflection of the highest love, and deepest respect?
A word of caution. Often times in general conference when a speaker shares a sacred experience from another they will affirm that they do so “with that person’s permission?” Similarly, while we may rejoice in the sweet and sacred knowledge of a Mother in Heaven, since our Heavenly Parents have sought to preserve and protect the sacredness of that truth by limiting references to Her, we must never seek to take that prerogative from them. It would be wrong to recklessly and ubiquitously, share the sacred and sublime our Heavenly Parents have sought to protect. Arrogantly propagating, embellishing, adding fanfare to, posts or blogs about that which God had carefully guarded may be offensive to the spirit. Such actions, without divine approval, would be unwise, selfish, and reminiscent of the swine who, “failing to truly understand the significance of the pearls, turn again to rend.”