When you woke up this morning, how many of you
thought of your Mother? How many of you are now scampering around in your
brain, because you forgot and it’s too late to send flowers to your Mother?
Last year on Mother’s Day we tried an experiment.
We had, as usual, two services, but this time we tried something different in
each service. The first service was a contemplative service, in which we sat in
small groups, with deep listening, and each person took a turn speaking to the
others in their group about their own personal difficulties with Motherhood.
And there are many.
In the U.S. there are about 314 million people
right now. Each of them, no matter where they come from, how old they are, who
they love, how rich or poor they are, each of them has a mother.
Some share their mother with other folks, but to a
person, everybody has one.
How many people of the 314 million have the
perfect mother?
Not a single one of us.
I saw this aloud because it doesn’t get said often
in a way that is helpful. We hear, especially on a day like to day, a lot about
the either real or pseudo sainthood of our mothers.
This does damage in several ways, but there are
two I’d like to address this morning.
First, even though she’s probably smarter than
this, your mother, or maybe it’s you, is competing with a fictional character.
Trying to measure up to someone who doesn’t do things like sleep, make
mistakes, inadvertently bruise their child. Someone who loves roses of all
sorts, who never loses her temper and who bakes cookies 365 days a year, and
yet manages to wear the same dress size she wore when she was 14.
Secondly, this sort of fiction blocks those of us
who have mothers from feeling real grief about our own Mother’s human-ness,
because to do so, especially on a day like today, is socially unacceptable.
I love my Mom. And I’m not just saying this
because she reads my sermons, but because it is true. But my love for her is
made more real by loving the real person and not some fictional version of her.
If we can not be allowed to embrace our mothers
for who they really are, then we don’t really love them, we love some concept
of her.
Love your real Mom, even if it’s difficult.
Notice I said love, I didn’t say turn your face
away from the flaws in your relationship, the mistakes she’s made or to glorify
beyond reason what she did well.
But do, as you should with all people, do be
gentle.
When you picture your Mother, what do you see? Do
you see the color of her hair, be it a natural color or with some assistance?
Do you see her smile? Can you see her tears?
Do you know her birthday? I know mine, but I’m not
going to tell you that!
Is the woman you think as your mother the woman
who gave birth to you, or no? Who else has nurtured your body and spirit?
I have a long list of women for who I am grateful.
During this morning’s Time for All Ages, I shared
Dr. Seuss’s book Are You My Mother? It’s a fun enough story, perhaps a little
nervous making for the little ones in our church family, who might worry about
their Mom going away. But I had more nefarious reasons for reading this book on
Mother’s Day than might be readily apparent.
You may recall that the little bird goes from
animal to animal, and then to machinery asking “Are you my Mother?” This is an
especially poignant question for a child to ask if that child is say… adopted,
or is multi-racial and looks very different from their mother, or is a child in
foster care. The question moves from being a cute question about confusion to a
real, existential question.
Are you my Mother? In many ways is really asking
the questions “Who am I, and how do I fit in to this large sometimes very
frightening universe? Who do I belong to? Who are my people? Who will take care
of me?”
The soon to be Rev. Darcy Baxter, Family Minister
at the Starr King UU Church in Hayward California, encouraged churches
throughout the UUA to embrace “Mama’s Day,”[1]
this year on Mother’s Day. Darcy, of course, is not alone in this effort to
raise our awareness, but she is the person who brought it to my attention.
Mama’s Day is a day of celebration of all sorts of
families. Some with two Mamas, some with two Daddies, some with one of each or
only one parent, and the many other combinations that are possible with blended
families.
One of the very visible goals of Mama’s Day is to
create and help support what they are calling “Strong Families.” Families that
are sometimes marginalized in our world, held up, celebrated and helped by all
of us.
What Mama’s Day is asking us to do is to take some
time, not just today, but throughout the year to ask questions about what makes
a strong family, and how do we help families who are in need. Families who
struggle with poverty, illnesses, immigration worries and more.
Earlier I asked you “When you picture your mother,
what do you see…” How many of you saw a woman in Chowchilla’s Prison?
One way in we could honor Mama’s Day is to get
involved with the women serving time in Chowchilla. Perhaps we could help by
offering educational or spiritual tutoring. Perhaps we could help out a woman
who is newly released and reunited with her children….
I don’t know what we might do, because I think it
should be up to a group of people who are called to be involved to figure that
out.
But I do believe we ought to do something.
Chowchilla is just about an hour away from here,
and amongst us we have centuries of experience teaching, performing social work
and other helping professions that these women might really be able to use.
With enough help, perhaps we could even have an
effect on the recidivism rate.
Think back to that little bird in P. D. Eastman’s
story. Are you my Mommy is probably a question asked by every child who’s
mother is in Chowchilla today.
When Julia Ward Howe wrote her “Mother’s Day
Proclamation” she did not have our modern holiday in mind. We have Anna Jarvis,
who created Mother’s Day in 1908 to thank for that. From Julia, one of our
Unitarian ancestors, we have this proclamation:
Arise,
then, women of this day!
Arise,
all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say
firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and
applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been
able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one
country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be
trained to injure theirs."
From
the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says:
"Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have
often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, Let women now
leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let
them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them
solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human
family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress,
not of Caesar, But of God.
In the
name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of
women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace
deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement
of international questions,
The
great and general interests of peace.
—Julia
Ward Howe[2]
Though the call to action is slightly different
than what I’m suggesting we might do in Chowchilla, still there is a call to
action that has a special focus on women and motherhood shared between Mrs.
Howe’s lovely words and mine, which feel quite overshadowed by hers.
Generation after generation we hear the call of
the women of our faith to address the social ills of our time. Abigail Adams,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothea Dix,
Clara Barton, and the list could go on and on.
Generations of the women in our faith have
expended great efforts, often at terrible personal risk so address the social
ills of our nation. Do we not have a responsibility to these, our fore-mothers,
to do the same?
Yes, today is a day to celebrate the women in our
lives who have nurtured us body and spirit. Let us celebrate their work and
generosity by in turn helping to heal the world we live in with love.
Amen.
© The Rev. Joseph M Cherry
Written for and Delivered to
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County
May 12, 2013
