These days Mothering Sunday has become known as Mother’s Day, following the American tradition that is celebrated in May, and not the middle Sunday of Lent. During the twentieth century and due in no small part to the promotion of Constance Smith Mothering Sunday began to be marked on the fourth Sunday of Lent known as Laetare Sunday, which means “rejoice”. It grew in popularity after the first world war and no doubt was linked to this idea of folk returning home to place of safety, nurture and love.
Mothering Sunday, Mother’s Day, whatever its actual true origins is enshrined in this image of returning home, and this sense of belonging to something more than ourselves. Whether that is actually of children returning to the family home having been working away or of people returning to the mother church, or those returning home after conflict. At its heart it seems to be about returning home to a place of safety; it is about returning home to a place of renewal, of re-birth, not only for ourselves but for others too; it is about returning to a place of love and total acceptance of who we are, exactly as we are, no matter what we have done or where we have been, we are accepted with open loving arms. It’s about returning to that place where love is not only born but nurtured and grown and brought into true being.
Mother’s Day is the celebration of being held and nurtured in the spirit of love. Mother’s Day is about celebrating the spirit of mother. I have been thinking and remembering those folk who have accepted and cared for me; I have been remembering how they nurtured me in my life, how they offered unconditional love, regardless of gender or familial link. It is the care and nurturing love that matters most to me.
Someone dear to me has been unwell in hospital this week. They offered me nurture and care on one of the most heartbreaking days of my life. They gave me that simple and humble bowl of soup and sat me down and let me settle and be. They nurtured and cared for me. I know them by the fruit they gave to me, and it has fed and sustained me for the last 20 years come this November. It is the fruit I have attempted to live by during my own ministry; it is a fruit I will never forget.
Gospel Matthew 7 v 20 “Thus you will know them by their fruits.”
That bowl of soup to me is the ultimate example of the Divine love alive in human form, manifested. This to me is what days like today are about, they are about celebrating this nurturing love and finding ways to bring this love alive through our being. Not perfectly, in fact falteringly, but the heart of what we live by. Now even if those who have shared this love with us are no longer physically with us, we can still hold that love, nurture it with our hearts, our minds our spirits, our souls, held lovingly by the one eternal soul of life. This is the love that I try to live by and hope we can all live by. We need to live by love and accept one another in the way that the mother, or at least the ideal of maternal love does. May we reach toward that, even in fear, may we find the courage to offer one another such love.
Today we celebrate the spirit of mother; today we celebrate and give thanks to those who gave birth to our being, but we do more than that. Today we celebrate those who have nurtured and brought to life the love within us whether they are the ones who gave birth to our bodies or helped nurture and bring to life something within us. Today we celebrate the spirit of mother; today we celebrate those who have nurtured our lives whether in body, in mind, in heart or spirit. This is surely the fruit we would want to be known by.
Today as we celebrate the spirit of mother we acknowledge our responsibility to one another as individuals and a community, to nurture, to bring to life, the love within ourselves, one another and the wider human community. Can we be known by this loving nurturing and life sustaining fruit.
The truth is that we are always known by our fruit and as the old saying goes, it never falls far from the tree. To use a maternal metaphor we are constantly giving birth to something each and every day. We are all a part of the Divine Creation and re-creation it is really important to recognise this. As Annie Dillard wrote “ We are here to witness creation and to abet it…We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are all around us and to praise the people who are here with us.”
This is nurture, this bringing alive the spirit of mother, this is what we celebrate this day. This is the fruit at the heart of this day.
Mothering Sunday, whatever its actual true origins is enshrined in this image of returning home; it is about returning home to a place of safety and I believe sustenance, whether that be actual physical food or spiritual food; whether that be simnal cake, a bowl of soup or the bread of heaven. It is about love in whatever form it comes. May we be known by that fruit.
They say “There’s No Place Like Home”.
Now this instantly brings up two images into the heart of my mind. One is of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. In the film she begins by singing of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” a place away from the drudgery, of the mundainity, of life where she could set her free, but at the end she clicks those ruby slippers and says those immortal words. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like like home.” Dorothy has been on a spiritual journey and encountered all manner of fascinating friends along the way. She has also fought off enemies who wanted to destroy her. She has experienced and learnt so much, but in the end she just wants to return home.
For many home is the embodiment of safety and acceptance, the heart and the hearth of a loving family. Robert Frost wrote that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." Sadly this is not the case for everyone, for many people home and family is not a place of safety at all. In fact it is a place of struggle and suffering.
Home is a tiny word but a powerful one and one so rich in meaning. It is a word that can hold such dreams of possibilities or nightmares of hurt. It is more than a physical place it is an idea, a feeling, a vision. It is something that we carry with us as we journey through life; it is not just something that we seek. For some it is a place that they are fleeing from, a place of repression and not a place of loving possibility. That said whatever it is we are fleeing from in the end we all must return home, just as Dorothy did. “There’s no place like home”
“There’s No Place Like Home” comes from John Howard Payne’s nineteenth century operatta “Clari, or the Maid of Milan”. The full verse reads as follows
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which seek thro' the world, is ne'er met elsewhere.
Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home
There's no place like home!
These are the words that Dorothy repeats as she clicks her Ruby slippers and wishes to return to that place of safety.
When I think of Motherhood and or the Mother Church this is what I think of, of returning to a place of sentience of nurture where one feels that they can recharge. A place that is known by those loving fruits.
These do not have to be physical places or people actually. The truth is you need not go anywhere. This place of nurture of sustenance can only really be found in the ground where you find yourself, in fact the truth is what we really need to do is find ourselves at home within our own being. We can enjoy these fruits and share them with others.
If you remember at the beginning of Lent I spoke of not giving things up, but seeing what we can give, nurturing what we have, so as to be in a better place to share our fruits. That we make a place within us that is a welcome to others, to find ways to be better prepared to truly use these gifts, to be of service to the world in which we find ourselves. We just need to nurture that which we already possess and share that fruit. It also teaches me if things get too much I can always do a Dorothy and click my own ruby slippers and be transported to the loving arms of “Warm mother God”. We all need a place of shelter at times when it all goes wrong or seems too much. This is spiritual community to me. That bowl of soup reminds me of it always. If feeds and sustains me every day.
This “Mothering Sunday”, this “Mother’s Day”, may we remember those who have loved and cared for us, those who nurtured us, those who shared their fruit. Those who helped us feel at home. Let us remember this love. May we also find ways to live by that same love, to bring it alive through our human being. May we be known by these fruits, may we become places of welcome, of nurture and love. For our world surely needs that as we need it too.
May we be known by such fruit…
On this day set aside to honour Mother’s let’s remember those who have offered us the unconditional and wholly accepting love of the mother ideal. Those who have offered their unquestioning love to us, those who have offered their nurturing heart and encouraged us to begin again in love. Let us also commit to living this way ourselves to offer this love to all that we meet. To not just tolerate the people we meet as they are, but to love them and accept them, Let’s offer to them the nurturing hand of love. May we be known by these fruits.
I invite you to join with me in prayer
"Prayer for All Who Mother"
We reflect in thanksgiving this day for all those whose lives have nurtured ours.
The life-giving ones
Who heal with their presence
Who listen in sympathy
Who give wise advice ... but only when asked for it.
We are grateful for all those who have mothered us
Who have held us gently in times of sorrow
Who celebrated with us our triumphs -- no matter how small
Who noticed when we changed and grew,
who praised us for taking risks
who took genuine pride in our success,
and who expressed genuine compassion when we did not succeed.
On this day that honours Mothers
let us honour all mothers
men and women alike
who from somewhere in their being
have freely and wholeheartedly given life, and sustenance, and vision to us.
Dear God, Mother-Father of us all,
grant us life-giving ways
strength for birthing,
and a nurturing spirit
that we may take attentive care of our world,
our communities, and those precious beings
entrusted to us by biology, or by destiny, or by friendship, fellowship or fate.
Give us the heart of a mother today.
Amen
Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"
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