How can we speak about Mothering Sunday in such a way that it transforms the commercial and social pressures around “Mother’s Day”? Can we express and embrace a richer, more dynamic and corporate vision around “mothering”? In order to do this, we don't refer to an abstract notion of “Mother Church”; but by using our gifts in nurturing one another.
The criticisms leveled at modern parenting and the romaticisation of motherhood are relativised by our personal reflections: today some of us are mourning the loss of a mother whist others will be facing childbirth; a couple will learn that they'll be childless; a single parent might be wrestling with an estranged child.
Day by day women, and men, will utter the agonising silent prayer of desperate longing for children - embodied in Hannah's story. Chris Gollon's painting captures her heart break and her fervant hope. The fullness of her womanhood is revealed as she carries within herself the instinct to nurture life; as her love overflows seeking acceptance and peace with whatever will be.
Hannah
Chris Gollon 2013
The biblical narrative paints an honest and complex picture – not just of being a mum, but of the joy and cost of love, and of the purpose and potential of our own lives. It reflects the gift of new life and the challenge of letting go. It’s all a very long way from the overwhelming pinkness of the card industry; it presents a challenge to how we live together in community, in fellowship. By drawing on biblical texts, we are lead into thinking about love that is committed and passionate. It's a ove that calls us into unexpected relationships, that is resilient and altruistic, that faces risk and uncertainty, that is consistent in bearing joys and pain.
The opening chapters of Exodus present a tableaux of realistic and resourceful females. The bonds between mother and child, child and sister, lead to bold and imaginative action. Pharaoh had decreed that Hebrew boys were to be killed: a ruler's fear threatened human flourishing. So when Moses was born, his mother faced a dreadful moment of letting go in order to preserve his life. Human sympathy is evoked by a helpless baby.
So when the Pharaoh’s daughter discovers the child, she deliberately overlooks the facts both that he is ‘foreign’ and that helping the child would involve disobeying her father’s decree. Moses' sister has watched and waiting; she negotiates a continuation of maternal nurturing in a palace removed from the child’s home. There is risk on both sides; there is longing that this child should grow and flourish. God works through the emotions and determined and resourceful actions of women. Moses is let go – and found and raised in a context far removed from his own roots; yet he becomes the leader and liberator of his people. For all his temperamental flaws, God is able to work through him; just as God works through us, in our vulnerabilities, gifts and relationships.
God's Spirit moves through our wordless cries and inarticulate longings, weaving the threads of our life together and bearing our sorrows. God's love is made manifest to us in the risky and compassionate action of others as they reach out to us. We all share in this generative activity of 'mothering': praying and consoling in heart break; delighting in and nurturing others; bringing passion and resourcefulness, imagination and commitment to our relationships. Such mothering transcends bonds of kinship and extends the tapestry of God's Kingdom.
© 2015 Julie Gittoes
