Big confession: I generally feel a sense of relief when the Christmas season comes to a close.
Except for the fact that the divine feminine will now disappear for another eleven months.
That means something to a Mormon feminist. Protestantism in general is starved of female divinity and iconography. Mormonism is an especially poignant case: our doctrine actually teaches us that God is a couple—a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother—though Heavenly Mother is basically hidden in mainstream Mormon talk and practice.
Except during Christmas time. She comes out of our closets and cupboards and takes center stage in our creches. She gets long American Idol-style solos in our wardhouse nativity plays.
And sometimes, people even read the revolutionary 10-verse sermon Mary gives in Luke 1, celebrating a God that favors the poor and “puts down the mighty.”
Our Catholic and High Church Protestant cousins call it the Magnificat. We Mormons (and lots of other folks) don’t pay it much attention—the longest piece of recorded speech by a woman in our scriptures—except during Christmastime.
