When I heard earlier this year that the Heavenly Mother art contest was not receiving as many submissions as it had hoped, I decided to try my hand at writing lyrics for a hymn. Although I’m not very musical and have never written a lyrics or poetry before, I decided it would be a nice diversion on Sundays. In fact, my church attendance was often clouded by my thoughts of what troubled me about church attendance and doctrine, so the act of focusing on my love and understanding of God the Mother created a positive energy for my Sabbath.
Indeed, the act of pondering a Mother in Heaven and her divine attributes was wonderful worship. My soul felt soothed and healed in ways I hadn’t felt in years. As I moved through the song, patterning it after familiar hymn couplets, I found myself trying to merge both the divine feminine and Mormon sides of my spirit. While my family sat at church, I sat at home in front of my mother’s piano, the one I had played during my childhood. I felt the love of both my mothers as I accessed both a natural and heavenly sense of creation. I struggled to represent my desire to know God the Mother, my pain and discouragement over her absence and hope that her existence is real. In the midst of this creation, I felt love and joy.
And while my poem was not recognized by the Heavenly Mother contest, I found that this did not bother me at all. The act of thinking, praying, and creating was more than enough reward for me.
My dear friend Christine, helped me write some music for the verse, but we have not yet finalized the tune, so in the meantime, I put the words to a hymn. I share it here only as an illustration of my point that the journey can be more valuable than the destination.
Wow. This is wonderful! I’m singing it while I get dressed for church. . . Thank you. Thank you.
This is beautiful! Thank you for sharing it.
Lovely, Jessawhy, thanks for sharing your bravery with us!
I love the versatility of it being a 7777 meter — lots of great tunes that could fit! (Until you commit to one with your composer friend) Hymn #20 for example is a match for the meter (very similar to the “Lord we ask thee” setting) and I loved the idea of taking a hymn tune that is about a “God of power, God of Right” (a Heavenly Father text), and duplicating that with “She is Wisdom, she is Love” (a Heavenly Mother text). “Jesus, Lover of my soul” does the same with an original text about a loving Jesus.
I agree that the process of writing can be the best part! May you be so inspired and share with us again!
I love your description of the value in the process of writing this, Jessawhy! Thanks for sharing the result too!
I’m so glad to see this final version, and I LOVE how it looks like it’s all ready to fit right into the next hymnbook with the LDS hymnal’s font and everything.
Thank you for sharing the story behind writing those lyrics.
Please be sure to submit this, even if it’s not for the HM contest. The Church has several hymn writing funds that give awards every year – https://www.lds.org/music/submit-music?lang=eng
Beautiful. I especially love the final verse, Jess. I love seeing the divine feminine in you, in others. I love how this hymn changes the way we can view each other as more holy, as children of our Mother.
That final verse is so touching. Thank you for creating and sharing this.
Amen to all that.