“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children..”
John Steinbeck
(a bluebird nest with two remaining eggs that never made it / Julie Cook / 2017)
Perhaps it does indeed Mr Steinbeck,
perhaps it does take courage…..
It should come as no surprise that no matter whether you’re young or old,
Republican or Democrat,
Christian or Muslim,
Jew or Baptist,
liberal or conservative,
black, white, brown, red, yellow…
alive or even dead…
the one single thing that I think is safe to assume for every last one of us,
a matter in which we may all find common ground…
and is surely a topic which we can each unite upon is…..
the single fact that we have all have had a mother!
Oh we’ve had a father too, but since today is earmarked for all things mothers…
mothers shall be the focus.
Mothers and motherhood…
It’s complicated.
Ask any mother….
And getting more and more complicated with each passing day I fear.
Because that role, that contribution, that definition is now morphing faster
than I can blink my eyes..
There was a time in history when more women died from complications with childbirth
than from anything else.
So it would be safe in assessing that birthing is not a piece of cake.
Then there is the raising…
Some of us are better at the whole motherhood thing than others…
Pintrest being probably the current best portal into
the realm of successful mothering and of those who are up for the current year’s awards.
Yet we each must admit….that during the course of a lifetime….that we have…
loved our mothers,
hated our mothers,
loathed our mothers,
divorced our mothers,
disowned our mothers,
liked our mothers,
acknowledged our mothers,
ignored our mothers,
not claimed our mothers,
never known our mothers,
been angry at our mothers,
been embarrassed by our mothers,
cried over our mothers,
missed our mothers……
but in the end…
we each must admit…for good or bad, we had a mother…
And petri dishes and test tubes aside…
Some of us are good at mothering and nurturing and loving….
and some of us, not so much.
Some of us want a boatload of children while…
some of us give away the only child we had.
Some of us “mother” children who we did not birth,
as some of us choose our children….
while still others are given the children they are to raise.
Some of us mothers are actually fathers who have had to take on the role of mother
for a variety of reasons…
So yes, this one simple fact of a mother, mothering, motherhood…
is complicated.
I am not a Catholic…so no one can accuse me of bias or blindness…
but there is one thing I know for certain, that being the example we have been given as to
what a tremendous job mothering can demand…
an example is found in a simple woman named Mary.
Oh we all have some notion about Mary–something akin to a fairytale really.
An image of a benign gentle face, adorned with white shroud with blue tunic,
hands tenderly folded as her unblemished face looks lovingly down upon mankind
from atop some heavenly throne as the stars dance around her head….
And that may very well be how things are for her now…in Heaven….
But I actually think of a young dark haired, olive skinned Jewish woman who’s hands
are calloused as her feet are dusty…
She is neither fair haired nor do flowers adorn her beauty.
Oh she is indeed most blessed among women, but she is also greatly burdened.
She carries in her heart a burden none of us shall ever know.
We may glimpse her burden, her pain, her hidden anguish…but we will not know
exactly her magnitude.
I see her the day she is angry at this strange yet gentle son of hers who speaks with
adult leaders as though he is one of them…
I see her when he becomes lost to her for days during a family trip.
Literally lost, as in gone.
He is young and seemingly naive to the ways of a dangerous Palestine under Roman Occupation.
Panic has taken hold of her as she and her husband desperately search.
Has your child ever been out of your sight for even just a minute or two
and for those moments of uncertainty, did you not feel that nauseating hold on time,
the feeling of drowning without being under water…?
And I see her releasing both relief and anger as she finds him comfortable and selfishly lost
in his own time with no apparent concern that perhaps his family had been anxious
during the three day search.
There were no phones, no Amber alerts, no police who would aid in the search.
And yet, he is among the elders, teaching.
In his mind, a perfectly normal place for him to be
but so frustratingly odd for her….
What does the mother of God do?
Does she yell, punish, reprimand, perhaps even ground him…
or…
does she bite her tongue as he speaks to her words that come from some place else.
As she is pondering, wondering, bearing the burden hidden in her heart.
I next see an older woman, hair greying, the lines on her face run deep.
She is no longer young or vibrant, but tired.
She stands in the middle of an angry crowd.
She is hot after standing for hours in the midst of this pulsating mob
as her nostrils burn from the heaviness of both sweat and dust mingled
sickeningly together.
The shouts from these people, some she actually knows, pains her but pales in comparison
to the sight now standing before her.
A man striped of clothing, no dignity remaining, naked, bloody and bruised
head lowered in exhaustion.
He is bound, bleeding profusely as he is the image of a man who has
been savaged.
This is her son.
The once young, gentle naive boy who spoke of things she did not quite understand.
Her mind flashes to holding him, cradling him, soothing him as she now longs to do the same…
wishing to not only kiss away the hurt but to wash his bloody and torn skin
while shielding him from the abuse—
yet she is frozen and paralyzed knowing there is nothing she can do.
A mother who bore Salvation.
So yes, mothers, motherhood and mothering is indeed complicated
as it does indeed demand courage…from every last one of us….
Mary should know…
So on this springtime Sunday in May,
may we each remember the mothers in our lives…
with love, with forgiveness and with hope…
Happy Mother’s Day….
Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother:
“This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel,
and to be a sign that will be spoken against,
so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.
And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Luke 2:33-35
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