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Is Mother’s Day Enough? A Worship Service by the Reverend Mark W. Christian First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City Sunday May 8, 2005
Reading A Mom’s Life Delia Ephron
Take your plate into the kitchen, please. Take it downstairs when you go. Don't leave it there, take it upstairs. Is that yours? Don't hit your brother. I'm talking to you. Just a minute, please, can't you see I'm talking? I said, Don't interrupt Did you brush you're teeth? What are you doing out of bed? Go back to bed. You can't watch in the afternoon. What do you mean, there's nothing to do? Go outside. Read a book. Turn it down. Get off the phone. Tell your friend you'll call her back. Right now! Hello. No, she's not home. She'll call you when she gets home. Take a jacket. Take a sweater. Take one anyway. Someone left his shoes in front of the TV. Get the toys out of the hall. Get the toys out of the bathtub. Get the toys off the stairs. Do you realize that could kill someone? Hurry up. Hurry up. Everyone's waiting. I'll count to ten and then we're going without you. Did you to the bathroom? If you don't go, you're not going. I mean it. Why didn't you go before you left? Can you hold it? What's going on back there? Stop it. I said, Stop it! I don't want to hear about it. Stop it or I'm taking you home right now. That's it. We're going home. Give me a kiss. I need a hug. Make your bed. Clean up your room. Set the table. I need you to set the table! Don't tell me it's not your turn. Please move your chair in to the table. Sit up. Just try a little. You don't have to eat the whole thing. Stop playing and eat. Would you watch what you're doing? Move your glass. It's too close to the edge. Watch it! More, what? More, please. That's better. Just eat one bite of salad. You don't always get what you want. That's life. Don't argue with me. I'm not discussing this anymore! Go to your room. No, ten minutes are not up. One more minute. How many times have I told you, don't do that. Where did the cookies go? Eat the old fruit before you eat the new fruit. I'm not giving you mushrooms. I've taken all the mushrooms out. See? Is your homework done? Stop yelling, if you want to ask me something, come here. STOP YELLING. IF YOU WANT TO ASK ME SOMETHING, COME HERE! I'll think about it. Not now. Ask your father. We'll see. Don't sit so close to the television, it's bad for your eyes. Calm down. Calm down and start over. Is that the truth? Fasten your seat belt. I want to hear it click. Did everyone fasten their seat belts? I'm sorry, that's the rule. I'm sorry, that's the rule. I'm sorry, that's the rule. Because I said so and I'm the mother!
Prayer and Meditation
Rev
Jeffery Symynkywicz
This is the kind of God
I could worship:
Our Mother, Holy Wisdom, draws one breath
It really is as simple as that.
Is Mother’s Day Enough? A Sermon by the Reverend Mark W. Christian Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City Sunday May 8, 2005 This week I happened upon a couple of poems that point me toward the center question of today’s sermon—“Is Mother’s Day Enough?” The first is called “Some Things Don’t Make Sense At All” by Judith Viorst. My mom says I'm her sugarplum. My mom says I'm her lamb. My mom says I'm completely perfect Just the way I am. My mom says I'm a super-special wonderful terrific little guy. My mom just had another baby. Why? In truth that poem asks the question “Is Mother’s Day Enough” in reverse by asking “Isn’t One Child Enough?” “The Lanyard” by Billy Collins is more direct. I don’t know if it asks the question “Is Mother’s Day Enough?” or if this piece answers that question, but it does speak to it.
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and taught me to walk and swim, and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard. Here are thousands of
meals, she said,
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
that you can never repay your mother,
How many of us, I wonder, have given our Mother’s metaphorical lanyards in exchange for the gift of Life and Love-freely given? How many of us have seen our tokens and amulets received with a grace befitting crown jewels and smile which says Paid in Full? How many of us have, years later, come upon these things—either in person or in memory—and with a bemused smile asked, “What was I thinking?” Such are my thoughts on Mother’s Day. I was in 6th grade when I made the lanyard, which became a possession of my mother. Actually, my lanyard wasn’t a lanyard, at all. It was little clay figurine. Actually, “figurine” is a stretch—Hummel Dolls are figurines—my gift was pretty much a fired and painted hunk of clay. I remember the Art assignment to make something—anything—out of clay. I know I experimented with many things—most notably a rather sick looking canoe. Don’t ask me why I tried to fashion a clay canoe—perhaps I sensed that a canoe was what was residing inside the block of clay before me. If that’s true, then the canoe really didn’t want to come out. I remember nearing to the end of the allocated time with no art in sight and just grasping the clay in my hand—my fingers tightening around sticky and damp blob as though I were either trying to choke it or squeeze the “art juice” out of the clay. I looked upon the freshly crunched semi-cylindrical slab, which bore the outline of my hand around its perimeter. Somehow I decided it looked a bit like a person—perhaps a bit like I felt. I pushed it down soundly on my desk to form a flat bottom. Then I pinched a semblance of a nose near the top, a couple proto-pinched hands and used my pencil to poke eye holes and carve something of a bemused grimace on the clump of clay. What I ended up with was a palm sized yellowish fellow, about 4 inches tall that bore a slight resemblance to the face you may have seen on that famous portrait “The Scream.” That day, that was as close to art as I was going to come. The existential exhaustion of “The Scream” was what I was feeling right then. To the extent that I captured that feeling, I suppose this was art. In truth, though, it was a face only a mother could love so I brought the thing home. I don’t know if I actually gave it to my mother or if she adopted it—but that little fellow lived for many years either on her desk or in the planter above the kitchen sink that held her Christmas Cactus. I suppose he’s around somewhere these days, but I don’t know where. There is something in the creative process—something in the process of creating art, or music, or literature that mimics the mother-birthing of new life. Even men, through art, can give birth. There is something in the very act of a mother giving birth, in turn, which echoes the creation of life and the cosmos on a personalized scale. This is part of why Mother’s Day is so important. This is why I would ask the question “Is Mother’s Day Enough?” There is a great story from the life of Theodore Parker that points toward the fundamental and foundational role that mother’s play in the history of the species. Parker was one of the more significant members of our theological tree. Perscott Wintersteen, in his book Christology in American Unitarianism writes— In the last months of his life, destined not quite to reach the age of 50, Theodore Parker wrote down recollections of his boyhood. One of them was…the arresting of his arm as it was posed to strike a tortoise with a stick, by a voice within him, which declared, “clear and loud, ‘it is wrong!’” His mother explained to him, when he told her later, “‘Some…call it conscience, but I prefer to call it the voice of God and the soul…’” After saying a few more excellent words about listening to the conscience, Parker’s mother concluded, “‘Your life depends on heeding this little voice.’” Parker heeded it. (Page 48) I don’t know if that really happened or if it is apocryphal. That story may be Unitarian Hagiography—a pious fiction told of one of our “Transcendental Saints.” The point I am trying to draw is the profound way, which those little lessons that mothers impart to their children are as powerful as the wise and wonderful words of preachers and scriptures. The words of mothers live on in the lives of the humanity’s greatest lights as well as in the lives of we who are merely mortal. Who knows, perhaps those great lights shine so brightly because they listened so very carefully to their mothers! On Mother’s Day, I am pressed to admit that those early lessons are often more important than all the preaching and teaching that will come in shaping one’s moral center and compass. Is, I ask, Mother’s Day really enough? In the light of Parker, the turtle and the stick; in the light of my little screaming art project; in the light of Billy Collins’ lanyard—I should probably admit that our relationships with our mothers and the feelings invoked my Mother’s Day can be complex. While, no doubt, most of us have (or had) good experiences with our mothers—there are some who didn’t. There are some harbor ambivalence and frustration that become aggravated and inflamed with the approach of the second Sunday in May. There is the Mother’s Day longing that grows acute in some women who have no children but dearly wish they did. Mother’s Day can be a time when mothers grieve the death of their children. On Mother’s Day, children whose mothers have died can feel a particular kind of loss. This can be a time when mothers blame themselves for the lives of children that didn’t unfold as they had imagined. There are women who have had abortions and given up children for adoption for whom Mother’s Day is characterized by a melancholy wondering if the choice they made was really the right choice. There are some who are convinced they made wrong choices in parenting—and maybe they did—for them Mother’s Day can be far from joyous. We human beings are complex creatures—capable of many feelings, thoughts and emotions. Mothers, despite all the Hallmark sensibilities of this Day, are only human. It is natural that the real experience of Mother’s Day is varied and complex—but I think this is also a time to go easy on memories and expectations. In current psychological parlance there is something that is called “Good Enough Mothering.” In responding to the question “Is Mother’s Day Enough” it might be easy to say that no matter what or how much we do—it isn’t enough. One can never repay the gift of life. This kind of perfectionism is really out of place in a day dedicated to the reality of human living. This perfectionism is particularly out of place when it comes to the part mystical, part rational, part human, part divine task of mothering. In this light, I ask “Is Mother’s Day Enough?” I guess part of my message is for all of us to treasure mothering as it occurs in the world. Don’t just treasure your mother; don’t just expect your children to offer gifts and adorations. I think the real call of this day is to honor and acknowledge our own mothers, and then to go beyond that to honor the challenges and accomplishments of all the mothers we know. Not to rest there, but to continue on to stand in awe and amazement at the world around us which is constantly being remade by the children of mothers everywhere and the transcendent spirit of life which is, in reality, the mother from which we all descend. As I move toward a close—perhaps there is a something of a response to the question of the sufficiency of Mother’s Day in this piece from an unknown author. If I had my Child to Raise Over Again, I'd finger paint more, and point the finger less. I'd do less correcting, and more connecting. I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes I would care to know less, and know to care more. I'd take more hikes and fly more kites. I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play. I'd run through more fields, and gaze at more stars. I'd do more hugging and less tugging. I would be firm less often, and affirm much more. I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later. I'd teach less about the love of power, And more about the power of love. Or perhaps the answer to my question is in this piece—which I believe to be one of the wisest things I can share on Mother’ Day— Real Mothers don't eat quiche; they don't have time to make it. Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably in the sandbox. Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens, and happy kids. Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn't come out of shag carpets. Real Mothers don't want to know what the vacuum just sucked up. Real Mothers sometimes ask "why me?" and get their answer when a little voice says, “Because I love you best." Real Mothers know that a child's growth is not measured by height or years or grade. ... It is marked by the progression of Mama to Mommy to Mom... I suppose the answer my question—“Is Mother’s Day Enough?” was tied up in that poem about “The Lanyard” after all.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
that you can never repay your mother, May it ever be so. AMEN
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