The following was a talk I gave in my sacrament meeting for Mother’s Day, May 10, 2015.
Today I want to address motherhood as it relates to paradoxes, mother Eve in the garden, scriptural themes that are given the female gender, and how motherhood encompasses far more than just the bearing of children.
Paradoxes
When two things collide and don’t seem to fit together, we say it is a contradiction. A paradox is something true that only appears to be a contradiction because we do not yet see the whole picture.
We experience paradoxes all the time, some in the form of people, life events, or nature, and there are plenty in scripture, church history, doctrine, and policy.
I believe that we should not fear paradoxes; they are a necessary part of our mortal experience. Encountering them and wrestling with them reveals a lot about how we think, what we desire, and what we are willing to do when our vision of the truth becomes clearer. It is our willingness to dive in between the two extremes of the paradox that the truth is found.
The first paradox appeared in a place called Eden.
Eve and the First Paradox
God forbade Adam and Eve from partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, while another being came along coaxing them to partake.
What was Eve to do? Don’t eat of the fruit, eat of it, you will surely die, you will not surely die. Eve was well aware of God’s commandment and questioned the legitimacy of what the serpent was proposing. But, something happened inside of Eve:
“the woman saw [or discerned on her own, independent of the serpent] that the tree was good for food, and that it became pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make her wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat” (Moses 4:12)
Then came the fall, you know the story. After these events, Eve reflects:
“Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.” (Moses 5:11)
Eve understood that virtue was superior to innocence. Innocence is a state arrived at unknowingly while virtue is a state arrived at willingly (thanks Bro. King!). With open eyes, mankind could move forward in God’s plan.
Wisdom
What Eve exercised in the garden was wisdom.
Wisdom is defined as: “The right use or exercise of knowledge;” There is another word to be aware of: prudence. “Prudence is the exercise of sound judgment in avoiding evils; wisdom is the exercise of sound judgment either in avoiding evils or attempting good.”
In Eden, we could say that Adam was exercising prudence in his desire to avoid transgressing God’s commandment not to partake of the fruit, but Eve, the “Mother of all living,” exercised wisdom in bringing about the necessary fall which opened the way for redemption and eternal life.
All human beings alive today once existed in the womb of a woman. We each developed in an Edenic state of innocence that required nothing on our part to live day by day. Through birth, we fall from that state, are severed at the navel from the umbilical rod that connects us to the tree of life, and we enter the telestial world.
Wisdom brought about the fall and wisdom will lead us back to the presence of God as we catch hold of the end of the iron rod and make our way back to the tree of life, with open eyes and crowned with virtue.
Gender and Purpose
In scripture, certain things, places, and attributes are given gender. Here are is a small selection of some that are feminine:
- In Helaman 11:17, earth is a “her”
- In Moses 7:48, earth is “the mother of men.”
- In 2 Nephi 8:3, Zion is a “her”
- In 2 Nephi 20:11, Jerusalem is a “her”
- In Alma 42:24, Mercy is a “her”
- In Moroni 7:45, Charity is a “her”
- In James 1:4, Patience is a “her”
- In Mosiah 8:20, Wisdom is a “she”
- In Proverbs 8:1, Understanding is a “her”
Because of our Eve theme, I want to single out wisdom. Throughout scripture, wisdom is a she (ponder Proverbs chapter 1 carefully). We have this profound verse in the Book of Mormon which states:
“O how marvelous are the works of the Lord, and how long doth he suffer with his people; yea, and how blind and impenetrable are the understandings of the children of men; for they will not seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she should rule over them!” (Mosiah 8:20)
What does that mean? Think back to the garden and how wisdom is personified in Eve, the Mother of all living. In a definition for the word “mother” I found the following reference to “mother of pearl,” yes, the stuff in shellfish:
“The matrix of pearl; the shell in which pearls are generated; (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary)
The word matrix means “womb.” Note that a pearl is generated due to an initial irritant, an unpleasant experience (much like the appearance of the serpent in paradise). The initial irritation is overcome with something beautiful and valuable, perhaps an allusion to the way the feminine component to humanity may overcome the blindness and impenetrable understandings of humanity with wisdom.
The Proclamation on the Family states: “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”
The Proclamation continues saying: “By divine design… Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.”
Note that it says primarily and not only. This means that although the nurturing of children is a top priority, motherhood is not only the nurturing of children, there is more.
Motherhood
We talk a lot about motherhood, families, and children as Latter-day Saints, and this frequent repetition can be recurringly painful to single sisters or women who are unable to have children. How can someone in that situation not feel as if they are faced every day with a huge contradiction? How does one reconcile not being able to fulfill a purpose that they are told is part of a divine design?
Where might we find wisdom in this?
In a talk titled “Are we not all mothers” by Sheri Dew who is perhaps the most influential single LDS woman in the Church, we find some interesting truths:
“Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is certainly that. It is the essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature, and the unique traits our Father gave us.”
She continues:
“Eve set the pattern. In addition to bearing children, she mothered all of mankind when she made the most courageous decision any woman has ever made and with Adam opened the way for us to progress. She set an example of womanhood for men to respect and women to follow, modeling the characteristics with which we as women have been endowed: heroic faith, a keen sensitivity to the Spirit, an abhorrence of evil, and complete selflessness.”
She sums up what a mother’s ultimate role should be:
“Look around. Who needs you and your influence? If we really want to make a difference, it will happen as we mother those we have borne and those we are willing to bear with.”
Sometimes those two are one in the same.
“Who needs you?” If you have children, then they need you. If you don’t, then look around. We are all God’s children, Jesus understood that. For all the talk of family and marriage in the Church, the record paradoxically portrays Jesus as a single figure who went about doing good.
Instead of verses filled with Jesus parenting his own offspring, we see him opening his arms to the children of others, young and old. His love transcended smaller familiar bounds and encompassed all humanity.
Back when I was a teenager, I was listening to a radio show that focused on family issues. A woman called in and expressed that she and her husband couldn’t have children of their own but desperately wanted a child. Adoption was their only choice, but she was afraid that she would not love the child as much because “she would not be related to the child.” The show’s host, immediately exercising her wisdom replied, “Well, you love your husband don’t you? And you’re not related to him.”
The woman’s realization was palpable, she realized that Motherhood was more than just genetics, it was about choosing to love, choosing to be there for another soul and to help them in love.
Remember wisdom; in the midst of a swirling paradox, Eve found her truth which was the truth. To say that her solution was outside of her ‘comfort zone,’ or expectations is an understatement of Biblical proportions. As Eve watched the consequences of her wisdom unfold, she “heard all these things and was glad” (Moses 5:11).
The God of the entire Universe is, to us, a personal God. A God with infinite universal purposes has, even for the least of us, a personal purpose – may we find it.
The Divine Mother
In 1909, the First Presidency of the Church wrote: “All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.” (“The Origin and Destiny of Man,” Improvement Era 12 (November 1909): 78)
The Proclamation on the Family states: “Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents…” (1995)
Elder M. Russell Ballard taught in 2001 that “we are part of a divine plan designed by Heavenly Parents who love us. (M. Russell Ballard, When Thou Art Converted: Continuing Our Search for Happiness (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 62.)
We know that there is a Mother in heaven, but where is she? What are her roles? Why do we know so little about her?
I don’t know all of the answers to those questions, but maybe there are some clues in the following conversation I had years ago with a disaffected member of the Church who was furious that he was always told to pray to the Father and not to Jesus. This was his personal Savior and he couldn’t talk to him through prayer? What an absurd notion!
Ironically, it was Jesus himself who instructed us to pray to the Father in his name.
I responded to this disaffected brother with another idea, one that was right there in the scriptures the whole time.
Jesus said:
“Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:37-40)
The Father wants us to seek him in prayer, while the Son invites us to act, he wants us to find him in the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. We find him as we become like him.
I wonder if women are uniquely positioned to find the Mother as they exercise wisdom in bearing children and guiding souls. Many things are spelled out in scripture, but others are only for those who have eyes to see. Planted there are catalysts that can direct us to truths only found in personal experience.
In a vision, Nephi beheld the tree his father saw and desired to know it’s meaning. Instead being directly told the meaning, he was shown a woman. Then, he saw the same woman with a child in her arms and he was asked if he understood the meaning of the tree.
Nephi responded, “Yea, [the tree] is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.” (1 Nephi 11:22)
There are many ways to interpret symbolic imagery, for this case I will suggest that the tree is the woman, the mother, and Jesus was the fruit of the tree, the son of the mother.
Alma taught: “For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; (Alma 42:24)”
Justice and mercy can only be satisfied with a mediator. So how does mercy claim her own? Think of the tree, she gives birth to a mediator, enabling mankind to move forward.
Falling Forward
Though all of us feel that we fall short, as mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons, take wisdom from Eve who understood that falls can be necessary steps to progression.
But didn’t Jesus teach us to “be ye therefore perfect?” (Matt. 5:48) How can we “be perfect” when there is a recurring feeling of inadequacy? Is this a contradiction or another paradox?
Neal A. Maxwell once said:
“The first thing to be said of this feeling of inadequacy is that it is normal. There is no way the Church can honestly describe where we must yet go and what we must yet do without creating a sense of immense distance.” (Neal A. Maxwell, Notwithstanding My Weakness, October 1976)
We know that God expects perfection, but we also know that he expects us to forever fall short because he sent Jesus. God’s definition of perfection is not the same as the world’s definition. Here is wisdom from Moroni on the kind of perfection God expects:
“Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him,…and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ;” (Moroni 10:32)
Jesus didn’t command us to have Pinterest-worthy kitchens, bedrooms, snacks, activities, dinners, desserts or lives. He didn’t ask us to look around and compare and contrast ourselves to one another. Here is what really matters:
“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12-13) and “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” (Mark 8:35)
Throughout time, prophets have poured knowledge into the earth, but what good is all the knowledge in the universe without wisdom to guide it?
9 Comments
So I have a question for you: Of course there are many interpretations of scripture stories. One of my favorite scripture stories, the story of Adam & Eve and the fall of man, is one of those stories that you can look at in countless ways. In your post, you say this:
“All human beings alive today once existed in the womb of a woman. We each developed in an Edenic state of innocence that required nothing on our part to live day by day. Through birth, we fall from that state, are severed at the navel from the umbilical rod that connects us to the tree of life, and we enter the telestial world.”
I love this interpretation, and it’s one that I think about often. My question for you is this: In the story, Eve exercises her agency to bring about the fall of man. She conscientiously does something that makes her fall. I’ve tried to ponder this a lot, but what do you think WE DO to fall from the state of bliss in the womb? Is it the mere fact that we grow? I don’t think we have agency to stop that from happening if we wanted it to. In other words, we can’t stay in the womb forever. If the story is the same, we had to do SOMETHING to fall – it doesn’t just “happen.” But physiologically speaking, something does happen. I don’t know if doctors are sure what specifically causes labor to begin, but either way, it would need to happen sooner or later. But Adam and Eve could have stayed in the garden forever if they chose to. Or perhaps not? I don’t know, for me these are fun things to think about. What say you?
There are a lot of little things woven in here so let me see if I can address them. First off, direct, exact parallels don’t always work, sometimes things can be out of order. While we come out of the womb innocent, our actual “fall” occurs as we grow and begin to discern right from wrong. The Adam & Eve story captures this process but in a slightly different sequence. I wouldn’t get to caught up on specifics, no metaphor is perfect otherwise it wouldn’t be a metaphor.
My personal theory about God and Satan tempting Adam and Eve can be represented by the following story:
Once there was a set of twins, a little boy and a little girl who came into their kitchen where their mother had just baked some fresh cookies. The mother said you can have any snack in the kitchen but do not eat these cookies. I need to run a quick errand but I’ll be back. Soon, the neighbor boy came over and said, “Oh awesome, cookies! Let’s have some!” But the boy and girl said, “Mom told us not to.” The neighbor boy replied, “Guys, your Mom made these cookies for you, she wants you to eat them because she loves you and knows how much you like them.” The little girl thought about it and said, “You’re right, we know she made them for us and we are probably going to eat them anyway, we might as well try some.” So the kids each split a cookie between themselves and just then, Mom arrives upon the scene and notices a cookie missing. “Kids? Did you eat one of these cookies?” the Mom said. “Yes Mom, we weren’t going to but the neighbor boy pointed out that they were probably for us anyway.” The Mom turned to the neighbor boy and said, “I ran some errands to get some final things for dinner and I trusted my kids to keep my rules. I did fully intend to give them their cookies LATER, after dinner. You are not their parent and have no right to override my rules, so please go home.”
Anyway, I know it’s probably a bad metaphor but it was fun to write.
I believe that the commandment to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was only temporary. That God was going to return and be the one to teach them and provide further light and knowledge about how to make that choice. But Satan sought to put himself in the place of God and teach them about the tree. If Adam and Eve ignored Satan they probably would have partaken of the tree later under God’s guidance. Satan was really the only one in trouble because he was seeking to imitate a true messenger and put himself in God’s place without any authority to do so. In this way, he beguiled Eve, he misrepresented who he was and his intentions.
That’s just a theory, there could be many other ways to interpret the story.
I rather like your metaphor, it makes sense. There is just one thing that I don’t like about the theory, and that is that I strongly believe that the Lord knew in his wisdom that Adam and Eve WOULD eventually be beguiled. In the scriptures and in the temple it says “If they give in to temptation, THEN we will provide a Savior for them.”
Now I could see that as meaning a lot of different things too, i.e, you could make the case of WHEN (God) properly instructs them to “fall,” (He) would provide a savior.
For me there is something very rudimentary and important about Satan’s role in the Fall. I think it’s an important part of how this world became telestial. Otherwise, why not just instruct Adam and Eve from the beginning? What would this test have proven if they did not partake? The point is that God knew that they WOULD be beguiled. But that’s just my opinion and theory.
But either way there must be something incredibly special and profound about the actual event of the fall, so as to equal the atonement that would come later. If the three pillars of eternity are creation, fall, and atonement, then I think the fall was no small act. It must have equaled the creation and atonement in terms of scale, magnitude, and scope.
My ideas aren’t the gospel truth, just another way of looking at something. Whether they were beguiled, figured it out on their own, or God intended to keep teaching them until they could see clearly enough to decide doesn’t seem to matter in my mind. Any way you slice it, the fall is unavoidable.
Satan seems to have just thrust himself in the middle of things as if he was in charge which is a big no-no.
I have a problem with the idea that in order for any world to progress, you need people who will become sons of perdition, hate everything and seek to war against God. But maybe that’s just how it always is, there are always rebels and progression depends on them. Maybe it is as inevitable as tyrants within human history.
There are many other ways to interpret these things and I can’t detail them all here. I’m not “bound” to one interpretation, but I think it’s safe to say that the fall was part of the plan, but the exact steps to that fall may very well vary.
2003 Sydney Sperry Symposium talk by Br Parker would add to this conversation
Hey, I read your analogy about the cookies and thought I’d share a few thoughts of my own about the fall.
First, when Eve took the fruit, she knew it was a commitment and that there were long lasting consequences, but did it anyways. This is just like going on a mission, becoming a spouse or parent, or making a covenant. There is no way anyone can truly explain what it is like, and the magnitude of the decision can be overwhelming, but for whatever reason God expects us to make these monumental decisions with hardly any true knowledge of the ramifications of the decision.
Second, when God commanded them to not eat of the fruit it was not a ‘moral’ commandment. I’m reminded of this quote from Elder Oaks,
“Some acts, like murder, are crimes because they are inherently wrong. Other acts, like operating without a license, are crimes only because they are legally prohibited. Under these distinctions, the act that produced the Fall was not a sin—inherently wrong—but a transgression—wrong because it was formally prohibited. These words are not always used to denote something different, but this distinction seems meaningful in the circumstances of the Fall.”
The giving of the commandment, I believe, was the creation of agency. Before that commandment they could not make a choice.
Third, I believe that God cannot create anything imperfect. I don’t see how a perfect being could produce imperfect things. But in order for the plan of salvation to go into effect, corruption needed to occur. I think the command He gave in the garden is how He enabled the corruption. The corruption was the consequence of the transgression, so the Fall was necessary and part of God’s design.
Hi JV, God does expect us to make decisions but whether they are monumental or not is simply a matter of perception. If God is the one commanding, whether it is moving the earth to another point in space or simply opening your mouth to say something, it requires the same faith. If you are focused on the task you are using the wrong point of measure. When we know God’s character, that his word is sure, then we can act with perfect faith and do all things no matter how mortal man in his own wisdom may measure them.
You are correct that the fall was not the result of sin, but not just due to the type of commandment that was broken, but the innocent nature of the ones transgressing. While one cannot be rightfully accountable for unknowingly transgressing a law, justice still requires its own.
Perfect simply means that something doesn’t lack anything sufficient. A perfect being created a plan that required a fall that would result in sin, imperfection, etc. It didn’t really matter how the fall occurred, it was inevitable. Even if God himself explained later to Adam and Eve (which I think he would have if the serpent hadn’t intervened) that they had a choice to make, fall, and bring about the plan, or stay forever in the garden and hold back the progression of themselves and billions of souls.
I think it would have only been a matter of time. The serpent just took it upon himself to “do that which has been done in other worlds.” I don’t think that he was trying to be “evil” by doing this, I think he was trying to take on the role of God, and do what God would have eventually done. God would not have tempted man, but I think he would have taught them in a manner that they would be able to act and choose.
The serpent did deceive Eve in that he had ulterior motives. Whatever the full story is, I think that whether the serpent was there or not, there could have been multiple ways this could have played out but with the same result. Adam and Even would have eventually fallen.
Take two toddlers and leave them alone in a house. How long before they break a rule? Whether a mischievous cousin is in there or not prompting them to do something they shouldn’t, it’s just a matter of time, a rule will be broken.
Absolutely beautiful talk. Your ward is lucky to have you. : )
If there is anything I can add it would be that there can be meanings in both masculine and feminine characters in the scriptures that apply to men and women alike. For example, What can I, as a person, learn about myself from both Adam AND Eve. What do each one of them represent in my life? What lessons can I learn from their actions that is part of ME.
Yeah, you’re right. I’ve just heard people comment on the paradox of how seldom women are represented in scripture. While, yes, stories of men and male characters are more dominant. It takes a more subtle eye to see beyond just what is there.
There is tremendous value in doing as you say and putting yourself into both situations. I just wonder how much of the feminine aspect that IS there just goes unnoticed. I wanted to draw a little more attention it in my talk.