Mothering Others

Rev. Emma Chattin
May 10, 2009

First Reading ~ from John 19:25-27

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, Mary, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple he said, “See, here is your mother.”  From that time on, the disciple took her into his home.

Second Reading ~ from Nancy Friday in

My Mother  My Self : The Daughter’s Search for Identity

Chapter 1         Mother Love

I have always lied to my mother.  And she to me.  How young was I when I learned her language, to call things by other names?  Five, four – younger?  Her denial of whatever she could not tell me, that her mother could not tell her, and about which society enjoined us both to keep silent, distorts our relationship still.

Sometimes I try to imagine a little scene that could have helped us both.  In her kind, warm, shy, and self-depreciating way, mother calls me into the bedroom where she sleeps alone.  She is no more than 25.  I am perhaps six.  Putting her hands (which her father told her always to keep hidden because they were “large and unattractive”) on  my shoulders, she looks me right through my steel rimmed spectacles: “Nancy, you know I’m not really good at this mothering business,” she says.  “You’re a lovely child, the fault is not with you.  But motherhood doesn’t come easily to me.  So when I don’t seem like other people’s mothers, try to understand that it isn’t because I don’t love you.  I do.  But I’m confused myself.  There are some things I know about.  I’ll teach them to you.  The other stuff– sex and all that – well, I just can’t discuss them with you because I’m not sure where they fit into my own life.  We’ll try to find other people, other women who can talk to you and fill the gaps.  You can’t expect me to be all the mother you need.  I feel closer to your age in some ways than I do my mother’s.  I don’t feel that serene, divine, earth-mother certainty that you’re supposed to that she felt.  I am unsure how to raise you.  But you are intelligent, and so am I.  Your aunt loves you, your teachers already feel the need in you.  With their help, with what I can give, we’ll see that you get the whole mother package-all the love in the world.  It’s just that you can’t expect to get it all from me.”

Happy Mother’s Day, Mothers!

Happy Mother’s Day, Others!

Days that honor parents are always a bit more complicated in GLBT communities.  Family relationships are sometimes strained, broken, or in various tender stages of healing.

There are mothers who have rejected their sons and daughters, or who refuse to recognize the partners of their sons and daughters as having any place in the family.  There are trans teens who have been shown the door, turned out into the streets.  There are lesbian mothers whose children have been taken away from them, stripped of all custody rights by a legal system wielded like a weapon by angry, vengeful, or wounded husbands.  Or, other relatives.  There is a lesbian couple in the valley whose mother has taken custody of the children away from her daughter, a struggle that has been on-going for at least three years.  Imagine it.  Your own mother taking your children away from you.  I pause to wonder what mother’s day really honors or means in such a household.  It’s complicated.  Messy.

Now that may be an odd way to begin, when other spiritual communities may be celebrating June Cleaver, but I think it’s always important to acknowledge “the other”- those for whom the sailing has not always been so smooth.

I think there is a part of all of us that would like things to be “just so”,  perfect,  ideal, very Brady Bunch,  and perhaps feels bad, or somehow less than others if things are not “just so” in our own lives.  I think we need reminders that such things really don’t happen, and that perhaps, for ALL of us, our relationships with our mothers are much more complicated than we may like to admit.

These reminders- looking at others whose maternal relationships are so clearly complicated -teach us, I think, compassion and understanding for others… yes, but perhaps more importantly, for our own selves, and the nature of our own complicated relationships, teaching us to be more gentle with ourselves as well as those around us.

I also think that this drive to be “just so” has set such unrealistic expectations upon our new mothers that I fear they are doomed to feel as if they have failed almost before they have even begun.  Moreover, if they begin to talk about it or discuss the truth of their lives, there is the fear that they may face very harsh judgment.

Recently, Oprah, bless her heart, focused on this topic, and encouraged mothers to share freely in a judgment free zone.  A sisterhood of motherhood, if you will.  The truth was told, and the truth was heard.    A young woman, mother of a 5-year-old daughter with another baby on the way, began by admitting the aspects of motherhood she says she could do without. “I really don’t enjoy the early mornings or the plastic toys,” she says. “I don’t do arts and crafts, I don’t do pipe cleaners, I don’t do cotton balls or scissors.”  She would also be happy to never deal with bodily fluids again.  A lesson there?   Life is messy.

Another mother offered, “You can no longer choose your activities, your down time, when you get to sleep,” she says. “No matter what you do or where you go, you’re always tethered to this other human being in this unbreakable, incredibly fragile way.  Anything you do will affect this other human potentially for the rest of their life.”.

“One mom said, ‘I love being a mom,
I just hate doing it because it is an impossible job,’

The mothers also discussed feeling a sense of competition among themselves, AND between the moms who stay at home and the moms who are employed outside the home.   One of the mothers, who has written a book entitled  “I was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids”, summed it up like this:  “We’re insecure about the choices we’re making — that’s why we’re judging each other,” she says.  “We need to give ourselves a collective break.  Have compassion for each other;  Realize we all have issues, and we’re all doing the best we can.”

I think there is great wisdom there, a significant life lesson…. that we ALL have difficulties and issues to varying degrees…. and I also think there is hopefully more than a morsel of forgiveness there for what some may feel are the shortcomings of their own mothers… mothers who may be long gone from us, but with whom we may still have unresolved issues.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day on the Washington beltway and it really stirred my world.  It was a rainbow background, with a rather pious looking face of Jesus in the corner- the blonde haired blue eyed image of Jesus that hung on many a child’s bedroom wall.  Emblazoned proudly across the rainbow background in cursive script…  “Jesus has Two Daddies”.

The impact of the statement was pretty profound for a bumper sticker, and it brought two things to mind.  The first is how pervasive the patriarchy is.  How much of a given it is that Divinity is masculine.  That is a concept fostered by the patriarchy, and one that, by the way, serves the patriarchy.

I was at a conference once referring to Divinity with female pronouns, and a woman took me aside and took me to task, saying that “It isn’t right to give God a sex change.”

I didn’t know how to even begin to respond to that– except to say that the Divinity the Hebrews followed was Yahweh, a Divinity with recognized and acknowledged qualities of both male and female.  Isaiah 66:13 “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”

There are many images of the divine feminine, both old and new, And as near as I can determine, regardless of faith tradition, there exists the wiggle room, should one choose to explore it, to view divinity as neither male nor female but a spirit that possesses qualities of both.  Divine mother is just as valid as heavenly father.

The second thought stirred by that bumper sticker is the sheer complexity of the family unit and the lineage of Jesus.  It’s not nearly as neat and simple as some might have others believe.  It is in no way traditional.  It’s quite messy, in fact.  And it is exceptionally human.

Jesus can be traced as a descendent of King David through both his mother Mary, from David’s son Nathan, and through Joseph, his “step father”, by way of David’s son, Solomon.  Now, an enjoyment of ancestry may afflict only the deeply Southern among us, but the stories that weave together from those who raised and reared us are an important part of who we are.

And the mothers in the family tree of Jesus are exceptional.  I mean, really.  Perhaps questionable even, by the standards of some conservative traditions.  However, in my book, they are wonderfully colorful.  Strong.  Resourceful.  Brave.  Courageous.  And definitely not a June Cleaver among them.

Eve, an archetype, who has been labeled by some men as the temptress who caused the fall of humanity from the garden of Eden (what an unbelievably heavy burden to bear!).  Sarah, whose husband, Abraham, farmed her out to two different kings in order to save his own skin.   And, it should also be noted here, that Abraham and Sarah were half-brother and half-sister, having the same father, but different mothers.  Fast forward to Tamar, the prostitute, who had illegitimate twins by Judah….

…then Rahab the Harlot, who was not even Hebrew  — an outsider — that was a BIGGER deal! –but who was accepted as such among Hebrews because of her assistance to them, and was the mother of Boaz.

Now, another couple was forming elsewhere, Ruth & Naomi.  Ruth, also, was not a Hebrew. But Ruth pledged her love and devotion to Naomi, who WAS a Hebrew, and later seduced Boaz, outside of marriage, to have a child, Obed, whom the community later considered Naomi to be the mother of also.

And that’s just getting started.   If we skip down to the immediate family unit of Jesus, we have a complicated birthing sequence, and, proclaimed virgin birth not withstanding, one that might even be a bit problematic with regard to the exact timing of the consent given by Mary.  We have a step father named Joseph, and step brothers and sisters, and Jesus in the midst of all this.  And, as near as I can tell, not one “conventional” or “traditional” family among them.  Very messy.

And very human.

There are no perfect families,
only the one that we have.

And there are no perfect mothers.
Only the one we have.

The readings today speak about the foibles, the fluidity, the complex nature, the possibilities, and the community contribution and involvement in mothering.  This brings me to chosen family, and Mothering others– those who may mother us, and those whom we may mother.  These are bonds and contributions that should be honored as well.

The significant other mothers in our lives.

This has basis in many different faith traditions and lifestyles, from ancient history to modern times.  In Islam, for example, a woman who nurses an infant becomes that infant’s relative.

To honor the mothering others is to honor those who give us life, those who nourish us, those who offer comfort in times of growth.  This broad definition does not limit mothering to females.  In fact, in the first reading, who is mothering whom?   Jesus?  The disciple Jesus loved?  The mother of Jesus?  Or all three?

I would suggest all three individuals in the reading each offer examples of mothering others.  Providing for others.  Nourishing them.

Our Mothering does not end with our mothers.

In the second reading, we are offered a window into a daughter’s world as she tries to sort out the complicated relationship with her mother, as she goes in search of her mother her self.

Nancy’s fantasy mother tells her, advises her, warns her….

“You can’t expect me to be all the mother you need”.
“But we’ll see that you get the whole mothering package– all the love in the world.
It’s just that you can’t expect to get it all from me.”

Mothering doesn’t end with our mothers.

Let’s draw the circle one step larger, beyond the people… what are the THINGS…. the tasks … the skills, talents, and enjoyments … that give you life…. that nourish you… that provide you comfort in your times of growth.  These too are things that mother you.

Maybe it’s bird-watching, making music, caring for animals…

For me, it’s gardening, playing in the dirt, writing poetry.  Even though my mother has been dead five years, and I still miss her terribly, the life she gave me is given again and nourished by the things that give me life.  I find the face of my mother in those things.  The face of Divinity, of Gaia, of mother earth.  Because, in addition to the framed photos I brought today of my significant mothering others, I also have perhaps my most significant mothering other….

… that which gives me life…. that which nourishes me….

In closing, i want to honor all our mothers today, those who have shouldered and accepted the impossible task of motherhood, our own mothers and the mothers among us….

I also want to honor those mothering others among us today.   Our friends, our chosen family, those who mother this strong little community in the Valley, those who give it life, those who nourish and offer comfort as the community grows.  And I encourage each of you to look around for those with whom you may share the things you know…. those whom YOU may mother.

If I can offer any thoughts for you to take with you from this place today, it is an acknowledgement and an honoring of the people, places, and things that mother you…. that give you life… that give birth to you as a person… that nourish you… that comfort you…  be it your earthly mother or your mother earth, your divine mother or your mother of birth, your aunt, uncle, niece, nephew… the woman down the street, the woman on the street….

May you embrace these things as they embrace you…

…. nourish them as they nourish you….
…..care for them as they care for you….

For such things are, indeed, life itself.