This week marks 25 years since I had an extraordinary encounter with our mother in heaven

I would like to quote that here:

Adapted from documents written 1991.  Jan. 15, 1991

This is something that happened to me last summer. It is so important and so important that I have to create a more permanent file than the notes that I had at the time. I say that this happened to me last summer and it did, but in another sense it started long ago and it is still going on now. It is important that I write this but I am not sure who I will share it with at the presence. Janice knows, of course, so do Margaret and Paul and Chuck and Sue Kroupa.

This was written Monday Feb. 11, 1991

I gave my heart to our Mother on the Earth, the Comforter. It remains a vital and shaping event in my life. I use the pronoun ‘she’ in talking of the comforter. This is natural for me not a conscious decision. In public prayers I frequently have to change the construction of what I’m about to say to avoid revealing more than I’ve been willing to talk about in public and to avoid giving offense. But at home with Janice, I often pray to, and in prayer refer to, Our Heavenly Father and Mother or to our “Heavenly Parents” and I want to prayer to “Our Mother who is with us” directly. It seems right and proper to me. For she is she who is with her children in their sorrows and has been since the beginning and I want to join with her in the work of comforting.

And of all the Godhead she is the one with whom I have had the most direct and recent contact. I want to talk to her and I don’t think that this is wrong, but I’m not sure how much to mention in public or how much to say.  Silently to myself I pray to her during the day and when it is quiet and I am meditating I feel I am sharing my thoughts with her. I feel her presence from time to time distinctly, at least several times during a month. I love her and need a means of communion and reverence. Just a few days ago I complained to Janice that there is no forum to talk of such things or to pray, it would be to shocking to the congregation at large. It’s an impossible situation now; there is no congregation where I could talk of her freely. She said, “Yes, there is such a group.  The sisters at the retreats wouldn’t be shocked, they talk that way. But there would be shocked to have you there. It is impossible for you,” She said thinking of the all women retreats.

March 22, 1991.   When I hear people talking of feeling Heavenly Father’s love and knowing that he is close I wonder, “Was it the Mother that was close?” When they said they felt the presence of the Spirit, wouldn’t it possibly have been the Mother. I long for others to know so there can be a conversation. I wonder how it would be if people knew and talked of her at such times. I sometimes feel lonely and told Janice, “I don’t believe as you and the rest of the church do in such matters.” She replied, “How do you know? There are probably many others who have received such a witness and know but also don’t talk much about it.” That is a comforting thought. I am very likely neither the first nor the last. If it is true then many know and many more will know. It makes me joyful and wish to sing. I want to prepare her way and give her glory. She has been quiet long and has blocked knowledge and worship of her generally, but I do not feel that it is in appropriate, that she disapproves of my mentioning her now nor forbids the worship and love I feel for her. She is soon to unveil herself! As I listened to Marion Hanks’ talk on Sunday, I realized that it may be possible to humbly tell others what I feel by letting it slip naturally, a little bit at a time, without giving offense or creating schism, which would be wrong. I don’t want to make another ‘gospel’ or allow partisan to form. I don’t wish people, especially loved ones, to feel forced to take a position of either supporting or attacking. It would be also a tragedy if leaders felt obligated to take a position against before more full revelation arrived.

This last summer I read Bly’s “A little book on the Human Shadow.”  It made a big impression on me. I realized that there are many parts of myself that I have put away in the dark and that it is time for me to take them out again and look at them. It is time for me to recover my past, to be nourished by ‘eating my shadow.’  Bly is a poet and the images he evokes are powerful. I had dreams last summer which incorporated his counsel and that of the Ulanovs which teach me of myself.  I have had impressions which complement these musings. I have never been to a high school reunions because of the time and distance. Our trip to Denver was one that I looked forward to. I felt that it would be a voyage of recovery and a spiritual experience. It was. I looked forward to the trip. It was just Janice and I driving over. We left Friday morning and took turns driving. We also talked and read the proofs of Margaret’s and Paul’s book. Janice was to appear on a panel on it at the Sunstone Theological Symposium. I also wanted to read it. 

The time in Denver was good, along the lines of recovery as I felt, but better than I anticipated. No close friends were there but after the time I feel kinship with many I met again. I felt a great desire to celebrate the lives of these friends and comfort them, who had discovered that their life was not exactly what they had anticipated. We also had time to talk friend to friend to my parents for a while Sunday morning before leaving. I was a time of reaching out with love and understanding and causing new and comforting encounters to be. The epiphanal experience came on the way home. It was about noon. Janice was driving--she had been since Denver--And I was reading to her and me. I got to a part of the book that overwhelmed me suddenly. 

 “Rather each is cast in the Image of the Mater Dolorosa, the mourning mother who imposes upon herself a voluntary exile in order to wander with, and comfort her children, mourning and grieving in the veil of tears...” At this point I felt tears welling up inside of me and I choked on, “She is like Rachel weeping for her children. She is De...”

I couldn’t control my voice, I couldn’t go. I wept for a while and then said, “I am very touched by this,” Janice said it is more than that. It’s revelation.” I said, “She is here with us. She is in the back seat with us and.”

What was I feeling? I was saying inside myself, “This is what I want--To comfort in this veil of tears, to nurture, not to advance myself. This is what I have always wanted--yearning. I want to share your loneliness and sorrows.  How can I?  Oh, that I could comfort with you!”

Then I said aloud, realizing as I spoke it was of Jesus and myself.  “The eldest son is the mother’s son. She tells him to nourish his younger brothers and sisters when she must go away...if she is to die.” I want to comfort and mourn.

I realized that She wasn’t in the back seat. She was around me and before me. With tear fogged eyes I saw her fill the horizon in front of me. --I couldn’t go on reading. Tears were on my cheeks. I am not usually so over come with feelings. I rarely cry. I stopped wondering if Janice would wonder why I was having such trouble going forward. I began wondering if I could remain on earth. I was being expanded and it was both joyful and it hurt!

This was not just empathy for the Mother. This was epiphany.  “She is here!” I felt such love and identification for her and her work and rapture at her presence.

 “What would I tell Janice? What could I tell her?” Finally I regained control and found out. 

 “I’ve given my heart to the Mother. She was here and I wasn’t sure that I would go on living.”

These thoughts I wrote down immediately after and I am glad I did. Seven months later the reality of the experience has not dissolved. I know it to be true by the way it changed me and goes on changing me. But many of the details I would have lost. Now I will continue with the ‘reflections’ I made at the time:

The Holy Ghost, particularly as comforter, is ‘She’ to me now. This not an intellectual or conscious decision, but a change of most profound being. And I am acquainted with her!

I realize that to some this is blasphemous, but I know it and several times said, “They can go ahead a kill me know I cannot deny it.”

Janice asked me about it and I said, “No, I do not think they will but I can not deny her.” (Later I had reflections on what “denying the Holy Ghost” means.

My heart is full of anthems of praise for her:

 “Blessed Eve, mother of all Living,”

 “Who comforts us her children in the world.”

--And there is more that I don’t recall.

I realized and said, “Now, I am a prophet of the Mother.” and I wondered how I am to avoid ‘spilling the beans’ about her! I’d like to remain at BYU. I’m glad that Janice was with me and said so. She says that she is also glad and it helps her to know that her ideas are right. Janice also points out that

1. I’ve see what many women have wanted and here she has appeared to a man. I think that they will not until they want to nourish more that they want power. It is easier for me as a man to see her because Comforting is not my assigned role but I miss and long for it.  

I asked her, “Are you jealous?” 

She replied, “No, I am happy to share it and to know that things I have felt were true are true.”

2. Janice asked, “Do you realize you’ve become a mother today?” I didn’t but realized that in a very real sense this is so.

3.  “Well, do you know what she wants you to do?’’

4. Janice observed “What happened today is scripture as much as anything that you will read in what we call the scriptures, maybe more for us.

We observed that we could not have done better in Sabbath Day worship if we had gone to church, which was such an understatement that we both laughed.

What I have written is true. This is my witness.

 David D. Allred March 13, 1991.