2020.05.10 Mothers' Day Spiritual Wisdom Bouquet

Dear Mom,

Did you love me too much?
Is there such a thing, really?

No, there’s not, they say.
Yes, there is, they say.
All things are possible with God, they say
Love me as I have loved you, Jesus says.

Which is it?

No matter.

We loved as we did, loved as we didn’t,
many kinds, many ways—again, forever,
    always.

I love you, Mom,

Me



 A prayer for good humor

Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it.
Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good
and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,
but rather finds the means to put things back in their place.
Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments,
nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I.”
Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy,
 and to be able to share it with others.              St. Thomas Moore
                                                                    ****

THE VOICE OF GOD 

Ninety percent of what’s wrong with you
   could be cured by a hot bath,
says God from the bowels of the subway.
    but we want magic to win
the lottery we never bought a ticket for.
     (Tenderly, the monks chant, embrace the suffering.)

The voice of God does not pander,
      offers no five year plan, no long-term
solution, nary an edict.

It is small and fond and local.
      Don’t look for your initials in the
geese honking overhead or to see thru
the glass even darkly.

It says the most obvious crap—
put down that gun, you need a
sandwich.
                     Mary Karr, poet
                                                                    ****

On this Mother’s Day, we give thanks to God for the divine gift of motherhood in all its diverse forms. Let us pray for all the mothers among us today; for our own mothers, those living and those who have passed away; for all the mothers who loved us and for those who fell short of loving us fully; for all who hope to be mothers someday and for those whose hope to have children has been frustrated; for all mothers who have lost children; for all woman and men who have been our substitute mothers and we who have done so for those in need; and for the earth that bore and provides us sustenance. We pray this all in the name of God, our great and loving Mother.    Amen.
        - by the Rev. Leslie Nipps, Women’s Uncommon Prayers (Moorhouse Publishing, 2000)
                                                                    ****

Jesus, I love you when you’re angry, for so am I
I love you when you fiercely love the children, for so do I
I love you when your mood strikes terror, for so does mine
And just as quick as anger’s flash
Your swift embrace the flow of grace restores
I pray my will be yours.
         - Lyn Gillespie Brakeman
                                                                   ****




                  The Rev. Roy Parker, OHC

2018.05.13 Sanctifying Prayers on Mothers' Day

Over 100 years after Jesus had died his followers remembered that he prayed for them. He must have prayed aloud or they wouldn’t have remembered and carried it on. Jesus’s intercession must have made a huge impression on them. Over 2000 years later it still makes an impression on me.

I can’t imagine a more awesome feeling than knowing, feeling, that you are being prayed for, aloud and in people’s hearts. Today is officially Mother’s Day. This day is complicated for obvious reasons.

To honor my motherhood I want to free up the word “mother” from confinements like gender, biology, anatomy, sexual preference. Mothering energy is a gift we all have. It is the spiritual capacity to make things holy, sanctify them, with the sweet energy of wisdom, encouragement, and nurture. This to me is how God “mothers”and what I pray for every single day. This seems to be what Jesus the Christ brought—so strongly that the English mystic Julian of Norwich called Jesus “ . . .  our beloved mother who feeds us with his most precious body and blood.”

This is what Jesus the Christ is remembered as doing when he prayed passionately for himself as he faced inevitable death, and when he prayed for his followers as they faced the enormous task of carrying on with wisdom, encouragement, and nurture in a hostile chaotic, plain stubborn world—just like ours right now.

This is what I saw just last week in the park near our house. I stopped to watch two small girls, maybe four years old, as they sat cross-legged on the ground and took turns brushing the hair on a stuffed critter of mysterious identity. They shared the brush, the critter, and their own sheer delight—together. Wondrous! It looked to me like an embodied prayer with an action attached to it.

I come from a long line of praying mothers and grandmothers, so my own praying career began early. It was almost upended by the Church—ironically because I was a MOTHER!

I’d felt drawn to priesthood by the church’s sacramental life. I thought them very motherly: wash, cleanse, bleed, heal, touch, feed—all about bodies. No wonder the Church is called Mother.

But the Church told me I could not be a mother and a priest. By then I had four children, and I needed a mother!

That was back in the 1980s but even today motherhood threatens to upset the ecclesial workplace. Mother Church cannot decided whether it wants women ordained before children, after children, or during children. There is scant provision for maternity leave or time off for child care, and there is an ongoing significant gender pay gap, and attitudinal patriarchy prevails. I remember a male priest angrily saying to me: “I can’t imagine a pregnant woman at the altar.”  I couldn’t imagine a pregnant woman NOT at the altar, NOT in the pulpit, NOT at the font—banned.

I vowed to be active for equality for women and all people. I vowed as well never to let anyone call me Mother, except my own children. I’m not sure the parental model is so good for men either, or even for the image of God. Jesus grew up. We too grow up. I see myself as “beloved” of God, maybe daughter, but not child of God. My Godde, there’s too much very adult work to be done in the church, and especially beyond the church, for us to be sheep or children, even metaphorically. We have our whole Earth to pray about and care for—Mother Earth, no less.

Also, I vowed never ever to stop praying with and for all our children, my own and my present husband’s, just as Jesus prayed for his followers. We all need the prayers of others—all the time. I’m grateful that Christ prays for me, sanctifies himself to God that I too may be sanctified in the truth.

The little girls in the park right now are my icon: giggling with soulful abandon, brushing a ridiculously hairless unidentifiable stuffed critter—sharing critter and brush in turn with utterly untrammeled joy. Together they care for their beloved critter with tenderness, efficiency, and delight. They were mothering. They were prayer in action. Go thou and do likewise.

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY TO YOU ALL.

2017.05.14 Mother's Day Letter to My Children

To my dearly beloved children,
 
I am writing to let you know that what honors me most as your mother on Mother’s Day is your presence in my life, being able to see and hear how you manage to love life in spite of its many difficulties, your willingness to include me in the midst of your own busy lives, and your capacity to forgive me my clumsiness as I sorted out my own life messes. 

To say that I love you is a silly understatement. But it’s true, and the only word we have for deep affection coupled with admiration and gratitude. Because of you I don’t feel anonymous as I age out. Thank you. (BTW, I can hear you all laughing and saying: Oh, it’s a mom special.) True, I get more mushy with age.

Here’s a poem Rob wrote. I treasure it for its simplicity. It’s not dated but I’m guessing it’s 30 years old. I know it’s old because I tried to remove it from its frame to see if it was signed  and the backing began to crumble. It has hung on many walls over the years.

It was you, Mom,
  who brought me
From two to ten
Ten to two tens,
Crayons to pencils
pencils to pens.
       And
For that I love you
        Dearly

Each of you is a beautiful poem with your own unique personality, character, and special gifts. You are radically different and equally beloved.

It was you, Bev,                                                   
  who mothered me
when I couldn’t mother you
  and most needed the help.
     And
For that I love you
     Dearly



It was you, Jill,
  who  spoke a truth to me
when you called me a “wimp”
  and we laughed and cried together
     And
For that I love you
     Dearly



It was you, Rob
who wrote me poems and
dared to sob after a car accident:
“I nearly killed my brother.”
   And
For that I love you
   Dearly


It was you, John,
who, so ill in hospital, told me
“When I opened my eyes,
I saw you just sitting there, and it was enough.”
      And
For that I love you
     Dearly



“We have to work with what life presents to us, and we have to work as well as we can while we can.” (Martha Graham)

You all have done that and are doing that. Me too.


love,
Mom

2012.05.13 Mama Mía

I get tired of Mother’s Day with all its Hallmark regalia. On the other hand it’s possible I will suck my thumb if one of my four beautiful adult children forgets.  (All remembered.)

But......since we have this designated day; and since I think mothers, biological and spiritual, are among the most noble and honored of creatures (men can mother, too); and since it’s Sunday and the readings and today’s liturgical prayers were more filled than usual with Father, heavenly Father, Lord and Father, etc. I honor Mother God with HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.

Recently on Jeopardy the clue in the category of Ancient History was something like: The most famous couple. The answer that shot from my mouth was: Who were Adam and Eve?  Of course I was wrong and I don’t even remember what was correct. Antony & Cleo maybe?

But it got me thinking about Eve. Her name in Hebrew is Havva/Life-Giver. She is the “mother of all the living,” according to Everett Fox’s translation of Genesis.  A first mama.

It’s hard to be a “first” anything, even if you’re a myth. I remember Episcopal Suffragan Bishop Barbara C.  Harris —first woman bishop and first African American woman bishop, a double first —saying it was a heavy responsibility: very hard to be an  icon (an image of holiness) to some and an iconoclast (a person who attacks cherished institutions and beliefs) to others.

(The icon/iconoclast description sounds like something any mother-loving/mother-hating teen would write: I need you. Go away!)

Eve/Havva would agree with Barbara Harris.  Eve, for some women, is a mythic icon for a bold woman with courage to reach out, break a sacred “rule,” use her precious God-given gift of freedom to get out of paradise (too boring, no?) and live life to the full, all its joys and sorrows, sins and glories.  Eve, for some others, is an iconoclast:women are supposed to follow, not lead. For her offenses she had been earned the undeserved identity as the author of death and sin, and the cause of all the world’s worst patriarchal problems. If it weren’t for her........   All this over an ersatz apple? 

The story is a familiar one: Eve took all the blame while Adam, who himself ate with gusto of the forbidden fruit, nodded, peach juice dripping down his chin, pointed a finger, and tried to hide.

To the men in my life, sons and stepsons, friends and husbands,  I say, thanks for not following the pattern. To Dad I say thanks for having honored your three daughters with grace—and a little resistance, most of it about the cost of women’s clothes.

Mothers nurture, protect and care, and mothers make mistakes.  God is a mother, a birther of the universe who like a womb surrounds Creation with love and grace and buoyancy, like water does a swimmer.   The 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich calls Jesus, “our beloved mother who feeds us with his own body and blood.”  We all have a mothering spirit in us.

Who mothers you?