In Celebration of Mothers

Since being ordained as a pastor, Mother's Day has been a bit of a weird day for me. Before I was in my first church, Mother's Day was fairly simple: buy Mom a sappy card and maybe flowers; wait and see what my son brought home from school (if he remembered to bring it home) or, when he got older, remind son to get sappy card; a nice lunch at a restaurant; and, of course, a phone call to Mom (hopefully before she managed to call me). In general, it was just another day with a flourish or two.

However, when I became a pastor, the dynamics of Mother's Day changed. Oh, the family stuff didn't change - except that now I'm in the position of hoping that my son remembers it's Mother's Day and calls from college. Now it's not just a special day for a relatively healthy (but certainly not perfect) family, such as my own. The people in the congregations I've served have had various experiences of Mothers.

There are some for whom "Mom" is a hellacious memory, not someone to honor with a sappy card or gift. Others are mourning the loss of their own mothers, while still others desperately want a child of their own and are unable to conceive. There are those who struggle with families devasted by abuse, or alcoholism or drug abuse, or mental illness, or any of the other dysfuctional experiences that can happen to a family. How do you balance the various needs for a loving Mother-God for a child/adult of a deprived family with the celebrations of those who have experienced the love and support of a healthy Mom?

There's also this part of me which wrestles with how we go all out to celebrate the moms/surrogate-moms in our lives, yet we kind of sluff past our celebration of dads on Father's Day. Shoot! Mother's Day happens in the very midst of busy lives - just about the time the insanity of 'end of school' and graduations pops up. Most Oklahoma school graduations happen on either the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend or Mother's Day itself. Father's Day gets pushed to the summer at a time when people have skittered off on vacations. In some of the churches I've served, until I brought it up, there was no real acknowledgement of our dads/surrogate-dads in worship. *sigh*

And yet, God is the mother hen who scoops us under her wings and holds us close, or the mother who encourages her child to learn to walk, who gives birth to her children in all of creation, who comforts her children, who stands up and protects them when danger comes their way. Sometimes it's difficult to put aside our human experiences of mother and seek the loving caress of a God who wants to live in family relationship with us. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was for the reconciliation of humanity to our Mother-Father God.

You know? That's a family that I want to experience in all of its fullness - and I don't need to find a sappy card or buy flowers to do it. Thanks, Mom!