Mother's Day Reflections from a Non-mother

Yesterday (Thursday) at my regular physical examination I was lamenting my inability to lose weight, despite the fact that I have been foregoing potato chips and cookies, and adding significant minutes and speed to my daily walk. I'm not asking for a lot: one or two pounds, just to give me hope, would be nice.

My doctor told me that my troubles had their roots in evolution: long ago, women in my age group (that is, post-menopausal) were considered the least valuable to the group, and so got the least amount of resources alloted to them. Therefore, we learned to "conserve what we had", or so she said. That's why it's hard for me to lose weight.

Later I thought about what she said. "Women in my age group" means women past child-bearing age.

In other words, women who could no longer have children had lost their value.

I know some women who are not mothers by design. They never felt strongly about having children. (Some of them felt strongly about not having children.) But that's not who I am. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a mother. In fact, at certain ages, I was positively obsessed with having a lot of children. I read Cheaper by the Dozen and Who Gets the Drumstick and thought it would be wonderful to have a large family. I wrote stories about families with lots of children.

I know, I am a step-mother, and my two stepsons are wonderful people. I think very highly of them, and I have felt privileged to be in their lives, and for what I have received and (I hope) given to them. But, I don't think it's the same. At least, that's what I was told by a student intern who is also a mother. She looked me straight in the eye one day and told me I couldn't possibly understand what she was going through because, as she said, "I'm not a real mother."

This Sunday is Mother's Day, a day about which many people (including me) have complicated feelings. There are those whose relationship with their mother is painful, those who are grieving the loss of their mother, those who are grieving a relationship they will never have, but wanted, and those who are grieving because they message they hear on mother's day is, "a woman's value is primarily in her ability to have children."

Part of me believes that, too, and that is my struggle every Mother's Day. If I can't feed and raise and discipline and praise, if I can't bring life and watch over it, if I can't comb hair and say evening prayers and worry, who am I?

Very Simple Mother's Day Menu by exhausted daughter

.... while thinking, "next year, I think we should just go out to eat."

1. Chicken-Bacon Ranch wraps. Very easy to make.
2. Tuna Salad with grape tomatoes.
3. Now famous White Jello (with strawberry garnish)
4. Banana Bread.
5. Store-bought fruit salad.
6. Pie (always the dessert of choice that my brother brings).
7. Kristian Regale Sparkling Pear and Apple Juice Beverage.

I know it's kind of an odd variety, but keep in mind that my last service ends at 12:00 and that people were supposed to be at my house at 12:30. And that I had to stop at the store on the way home, because they were out of rotisserie chickens yesterday. And that my brother could only stay until 2:00 p.m., because he had to go to work.

So I was throwing together quickly the ranch wrap mixture in the kitchen, pulling little pieces of chicken off and throwing them in the bowl, and ordering my brother to squeeze a cup of ranch dressing into the bowl, and mix in those onions and bacon! And I was thinking, "really, next year we should just go out to lunch."

And after lunch, I was apologizing for the modesty of our meal, and my mom said, "I'm so glad you do this."

All right then.

Happy Mother's Day.

Children of God Everywhere

This is my Sunday sermon.
Caveat: At the 10:00 family service, the children were worship leaders. One of my challenges was to figure out how to include them in the sermon, as well. Finally, I came up with the idea to say the phrase "children of God everywhere" a few times throughout the sermon, and to have them stand each time they said it. And now, without further ado...

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a part of a large family. I had one sister and one brother, but that wasn't enough for me. I wanted there to be more children. The Catholic family down the street -- they had five children, and I thought that was wonderful. Why couldn't we be more like them? Everything there seemed more lively, more interesting. And I read books about large families, like Cheaper by the dozen, about a family with 12 children. I even read about one couple who blended families and had 18 children! Can you imagine? I thought that would be wonderful! But you, as hard as I tried I couldn't convince my parents that we oulght to expand our family.

Just after Jesus' resurrection, there were only a few disciples -- gathering together to worship and to pray and to help each other. And in some ways, they were like a small family. In fact, sometimes they spoke about each other that way, calling each other, "sisters and brothers in Christ." Also, most of the first Christians were Jewish, so therewas a sense of "family" -- they had all worshiped and believed the same things before they became Christians. They probably all ate the same kinds of foods, wore the same kinds of clothes, and spoke the same language as well. But little by little, that began to change. First, the apostle Paul -- who we read about in our first lesson -- began to travel farther away from the rest of Jesus' disciples. Somehow he felt God was calling him to go our and tell more peole, different people, about Jesus' love. And some of them spoke different languages and some of them ate different foods and some of them maybe even wore different kinds of clothes. But Paul had the feeling that there might be children of God everywhere -- if only they had hte opportunity to hear about God's love and become part of god'sw fmaily.

In our lesson from Acts today, the apostle Paul is about to set out on another journey. If you were to read just prior to our lesson, you would find out that two places Paul wanted to go were blocked -- somehow, he says, he got the feeling that the Holy Spirit didn't want him to go there. But then he has a vision in a dream -- there are people in Macedonia who are waiting for him, ready for the message that he is bringing. Now I'm not sure whether Paul would have gotten the idea to go to Macedonia by himself or not. By going there, he's getting just a little farther away from home. He's crossing over into another country, another area of the world. For some people, that can be frightening. When I was about 8, my grandfather decided to take me over the border into Iowa, which was only a few miles from their farm. As soon as we crossed over, I looked at him and said, "let's go back!" I was nervous about crossing that boundary. I felt far from home. These days it isn't so much the boundaries of countries or states that give us trouble. We travel many more places than our grandparents did. The boundaries that are still troublesome are those of race and colr and even class and language: it might be more difficult to visit the hispanic family acrossthe street, for example, than to visit Lutherans over in Europe. Despite those boundaries, though, the Holy Spirit wants Paul -- and us -- to know: There are children of God everywhere -- even in Macedonia.

In Macedonia Paul meets Lydia, a gentile woman who loves God. Now there are several unusual things about Lydia that might make her an unlikely candidate for evangelism. First, she is a gentile: not Jewish. She is not of the same ethnoic background as Paul. Second, she is a woman. it would have been unusual for a Jewish man, likek Paul, to speak with a woman -- just like it was unusual for Jesus to speak with the Samaritan woman who came to the well, in John's gospel. Third, she was both a merchant, and the head of a household. She had a family, but it was not a traditional one by the standards of the time. She may have been a widow with children, but her household also probably included servants. And she dealt in purple cloth, which, by the way, was a luxury item, so Lydia was probably connected. But she was at the place of prayer, and her heart was open to god. So Paul performs the ultimate act of hospitality -- he baptizes her and her whole household, and welcomes them to the family of God.

Writer Anne LaMott tells many stories about her journey to faith in God. And she's not ashamed to talk about herself as the unlikeliest person to become a Christian. She was skeptical about religion, she was freewheeling in her life. She talks about having the feeling at some point that Jesus was pursuing her and turning her back on him and thinking, "I would rather die." She just couldn't imagine herself a believer Yet at the same time she found herself at this little Presbyterian church on Sunday mornings. She wasn't even sure how she got there. And -- as I have mentioned before -- the people at this church were kind to her and welcomed her. She says of them, "Somehow they mistook me for a child of God" --but you see, they knew, llike Paul, that there are children of god everywhere -- and one morning -- they performed the ultimate act of hospitality -- and she was baptized and welcomed into their family, their congregation.

Baptism is many things. It is dying and rising with Christ. It is being born again. It is getting a cleansing bath, and then being clothed in a robe of righteousness. But it is also the ultimate act of hospitality. For whenever we perform a baptism, we are saying, "You may be a stranger, but now you are a member of my family." Sometimes we shy away from the "family of God" imagery. I think that's because sometimes the danger in talking about the church as the "family of God" is imagining it as an exclusive place, where we all look and dress and act similarly, where we ha ve come to expect (and even like) a certain family resemblance." That's why I like the image of baptism as "adoption into a new family, becoming a child of god" -- especially in this era of international adoptions, when children and their parents don't necessary look alike. It helps us to imagine better what God's family really looks like.

I used to babysit for a family with two adopted sons. Among their picture books, which I used to read to them, they had one that explained what it meant to be adopted. I remember especially one statement: "You are really special, because we chose you." and the message must have gotten through, because I remember one of their sons used to go around saying, "I am really special, because you chose me, right?" Adoption is really a radical act of hospitality, saying, "You were not born to me, but you are my child." It is to give the homeless one a home, and the lonely -- a family. So Paul welcomed Lydia into God's family, and Lydia welcomed Paul to her household. They were now related -- both of them adopted children of God.

Once, while Jesus was out of the road with his disciples, his mother and brothers and sisters tried to see him. He said, as if to put them off, "Who are my mother and brothers?" Then he said to his disciples, "Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother... and sister... and mother." At the time, it might have seemed a mean thing to say: to turn his own family away. But perhaps Jesus was not so much narrowing the definition of a family, but expanding it -- perhaps he was practicing radical hospitality. He wasn't so much turning them away as he was adding others, embracing others.

Today is Mother's Day. It's a happy and busy day for some: a lonely day for others. But here today let us remember that before god none of us is childless, and no one is an orphan. For thereare children of God everywhere (Children, please remain standing.) There are children of God in nursing homes and elementary schools, in Tanzania and down the block: and speaking Spanish, English, Somali and Russian. We are all mothers and father, and sisters and brothers, members of a large and diverse (and sometimes noisy) family. The homeless have been given a home -- both here on earth and later in heaven. The lonely have received a family. The hungry have someone to share a meal with them. God in Christ has come to you, has stretched out his arms to welcome you, has given you brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, as many as the stars. And it is our call, our task, our privilege -- to go out with open arms and hearts -- and to expand God's family. Look around you and see --- there are children of God everywhere.

Mother's Day

Today was Mother's Day. I always feel a little sad, because I wanted to have children, and it just didn't work out that way. I preached all four services today (well, counting Saturday night), then went to work preparing for a supper time hosting John's parents and my own (and my brother). John's boys were, of course, with their mom, but we'll see them on Father's Day.

Here was my menu for the evening:
1.Simple fruit salad (watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, kiwi on top)
2.Pear and Arugula Salad
3.Bought a Cheese Tortellini Salad and added some Pepperoni
4.Chicken and Wild Rice Salad (the moms like salads)
5.Raspberry Muffins.

The raspberry muffins and the chicken and wild rice salad were the biggest hits. I asked my brother to bring pies (french silk and blueberry) and J made flavored coffee (some chocolate truffle thing). I asked my neice to help chop the pepperonis and add them.

The dog: ran out the front door and down the block when my parents came. And I mean RAN. She's part husky, and she can really get quite a stride going, but she never goes very far (we live on a dead end). John caught her and brought her back, but when she saw my brother she (all sixty pounds of her) jumped straight up in the air. Needless to say, John was very mad at her. I understand how he feels, but I also am more apt to forgive, because I understand that her deficiencies have partly to do with our lack of time and patience in training. She was so good this morning. Came right in when I called her! And she didn't dig holes in the yard!

I felt good because one person asked for a copy of my sermon, probably because I talked about adoption as radical hospitality, "even though you weren't born to me, you are my child."

It occurs to me that mothering is a vocation, and there are two parts to it. First there is the act of giving birth, painful and courageous, and not to be belittled. But then there is the act of nurturing, teaching and loving, whether you are the one who gave birth or not, and whether there is real blood involved or not, this too is painful and courageous: to love and teach and nurture a child, to risk failure and rejection, to carry and to let go.