Review
Title: Cherish: The Joy of Our Mother in Heaven
Authors: Over 140 contributors’ poems, short essays, art, and quotes, curated by Ashli Carnicelli, Trina Caudle, and McArthur Krishna
Publisher: By Common Consent Press
Genre: Religious Non Fiction
Date: 2023
Pages: 492 (Contributors and Index begin on 478)
Format: Paper
ISBN: 978-1-948218-87-0
Cost (paperback): $20.23 (Amazon—search it under Krishna’s name)
Reviewed for the Association for Mormon Letters by Julie J. Nichols
In Episode #641 of Richard Ostler’s “Listen Learn and Love” podcast (May 6, 2023), Ostler interviews the three “curators” of this chunky little daybook to elicit from them its origin, purpose, and structure (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-641-ashli-carnicelli-trina-caudle-mcarthur/id1347971725?i=1000612016375). It’s well worth listening to the competent, mature, profoundly sincere voices of these disparate women. They are mothers of daughters (not one son among them!). One is an editor, one is trained as an opera singer, and one is the author of several Deseret Book publications introducing boys and girls to Heavenly Mother. Their individual and collective stories are worth hearing, full of tiny miracles.
Ashli Carnicelli seems to have been the originator of Cherish. Her first idea was to collect a book of poetry about Heavenly Mother. There are other such anthologies, notably Rachel Hunt Steenblik’s Mother’s Milk (also published by BCC Press, in 2017), Dayna Patterson’s If Mother Braids a Waterfall (Signature Books, 2020), and Carol Lynn Pearson’s Finding Mother God: Poems to Heal the World (Gibbs Smith, 2020). But when Carnicelli contacted McArthur Krishna, whose first Deseret Book titles were published as early as 2014, Krishna’s thought was that such a book should be a “sharing” book. She wanted to “democratize” the talk about Heavenly Mother, that is, to dispel the false notion that church authorities have forbidden members to speak of her. When Caudle was contacted, she offered to edit and organize the project, but as it turned out, the three of them together collected and arranged the selections. The result is something like a quote-a-day book, to dip into randomly for inspiration and comfort. But that’s only how it looks on the surface.
Both the podcast and the introductory “Explanation of Our Hearts” reveal that the volume is organized around the Gospel Topics essay “Mother in Heaven” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/mother-in-heaven?lang=eng). This document formed the foundation for the anthology since it’s sanctioned by the church; the book itself is meant to support the study of that essay and to direct readers to all the leaders, male and female, who have spoken about heavenly parents. The title itself comes from the first paragraph, which says that the doctrine of heavenly parents is “a cherished and distinctive doctrine,” although the three editors insist in the podcast that they mean the title word to be a verb, too, an injunction to cherish all experiences of the Mother.
“The Church is the ‘scaffolding’ to our faith, but we want to be clear that the vignettes are personal,” they say in the introduction (p. xii, italics added). Most importantly, however, the book is meant to point readers to Christ. Carnicelli and Krishna say that when they separately took their ideas to the temple, they each received confirmation that they should go ahead with the project as long as they made sure to keep Christ as the center. The first section (not given a chapter number), “Following the Savior,” establishes that goal.
After that first, there are twelve numbered sections, each containing a heading (a word or phrase taken from the Gospel Topics essay), at least one quote from a General Authority, sometimes scriptures, and between 20 and 40 brief statements—poetic, prose, or visual—describing longings, feelings, images, and experiences connecting the artists’ hearts to their Heavenly Mother. Some of my favorites include the art: a photograph of Anne Gregerson’s beautiful sculpture “Reunion” (121), Megan Geilman’s stunning “Queen” (94) and “Pieta” (272), Rebecca Cromar’s sweet“A Mother for Me” (140), Natalie Cosby’s heartful “She Wept” (289), Arawn Billings’s smile-inducing “Goddess of Creation” (253), Michelle Gessell’s primitive “Heavenly Mother Bearing Gifts,” (307) and so many more. (I could wish that the media could have been attributed to all of them, instead of only for a few.)
And there is much tender, moving writing. Kirsten Beitler’s soft experience at age 14 of feeling Heavenly Mother’s kindness after an altercation with her parents, described and drawn in “She Came to Me First in a Rainbow” (376-8), makes me cry. So do two selections about the same tragedy, Channing Olivia Hyde’s “Miscarriage” (295) and Emily Roundy’s “With Me” (299). I’m intellectually and emotionally drawn to Olivia Flinders’s “Delivery Day” (266), in the section “Designers”:
She releases the birds one
by one into the air where
they can be seen and heard and
loved.
She doesn’t think the birds belong in
cages anymore where
it is small.
She thinks the birds will carry Her song.
She thinks we’ll hear them.
I resonated with another by Flinders entitled “Love Song,” in which she imagines Heavenly Father responding to questions about Heavenly Mother not with words but with symphonies,
But along with these and other such images, there are paragraphs that speak directly to the audience: “Take a few moments today to write a note to a young woman…to share with her the love of Heavenly Mother,” Rebecca Young enjoins us (81). A few pages later, retreat leader Christie Gardiner provides some writing prompts: “How can your unique life experiences be used to strengthen other women in becoming more like our Mother in Heaven?” (88).
One question Ostler doesn’t ask during the podcast is how the contributors were found. Also, there are no bionotes—just a list of names at the end. There are probably practical reasons for this, but I was curious to know more about who they were and how their offerings were solicited. I found only two people I know in the list among the many I’ve been acquainted with over the years who have sought (and found) Heavenly Mother. Surely there are scores more whose words could have been included—what were the parameters Carnicelli, Krishna, and Caudle used as they gathered these selections?
I’ve praised BCC Press before for its generous, inclusive dedication to “producing affordable, high-quality books that help define and shape the Latter-day Saint experience.” This little pocketbook-sized tome is a perfect example. Designed by Andrew Weiss, it’s easy to hold, easy to see (important for the eyes of aging readers), and easy to map. We need to acknowledge BCC as enthusiastically as we do Carnicelli, Krishna, and Caudle.
These three women conclude Ostler’s podcast by testifying that “Mother in Heaven is joy.” They express joy that Dale Renlund talked about Her openly in his April 2022 General Conference address to the women. In Cherish they make joyous inroads into the false taboos that have kept women and men from spontaneously communicating the entire spectrum of spiritual experiences they are, I believe, fully entitled to. Good job, curators! Cherish would make a sweet gift for almost anyone on your radar reaching toward more connection with God, female and otherwise. Best of all, there’s currently a call for a Volume 2 on Instagram @mcarthurkrishna_creates, taking submissions until September 30. Check it out and let your voice join the joyful throng.