Mother Plants

In our family tree with more nuts than leaves, we have an eclectic selection of mother's to choose from:

• There is the mother that you dutifully tend (much like a delicate plant that you periodically get tired of coddling, you know...the kind that you tend to fertilize quite a bit)
• The mother that you ignore (like a weed you can't get rid of, no matter how hard you try, and no matter how hard you wish, it will never be a rose)
• The mother that loves whatever you thought of at the last minute (the hardy variety that can live through the cold, but prefers warm; that can make it through the dry periods but really blossoms with a little water and attention)
  
• The mother that never really bloomed (I always call plants with a lot of promise, but with no results - duds)
• Those who have no children yet, but you know they will make great moms some day (the seeds)
• And those who love everyone else's children like their own, but they don't have any themselves (I can't think of a good analogy for this one so I will simply call them surrogate plants.)
  

I know I must write on these mother plants, because I am certain others can relate to this.

Because of the strange and broadly ranged types of mother's which we must deal with in our lives, to have a holiday in which you must make a choice as to exactly how you are going to recognize/honor such people seems to be....well...annoying - and I am a mother! The truth of the matter is, no matter how much we might wish it to be, not all mothers are the "Hallmark" variety. In fact, I am positive that no one is the Hallmark variety, but some put forth a good effort. However, there is just no card out there that says, "gee, you were not a very good mother but Happy Mother's Day to my favorite egg donor." I know that comes out as harsh, but seriously, some people who produce children were never meant to be parents; yet, their children are often quite delightful, so I'm glad they put forth the effort anyway.

So, we have this holiday that makes us not only look at the type of card we would purchase for our mother, but makes us stop and think about what type of card our children are really thinking about when they buy one for us. Are we being that hearty variety that loves whatever your children bring to you, or the variety that is so gosh-darned particular our children live in fear of never being good enough, or even worse are we weeds or duds. Then there is the surrogate plant that feels unfairly left out of this particular holiday all together.

Don't get me wrong, I love Mother's Day, because this is the one day a year that my children will make the effort to be there all at the same time. But even if my children are in another city or not right there with me for Mother's Day, I am still a mother, and the relationship I establish with my children will be carried on to the next generation, and quite possibly the one after. If my children think I am a horrible mother that they completely want nothing to do with me, then I will never know my grandchildren. But if they think I am a bad mother then in their effort to be nothing like me, they will throw out good teaching with the bad, which will have an effect on how they raise their children.

At any given time my children, who have no children of their own, have judged me as b0th a good mom and one they disagree with, (if they don't hate me, they have seriously disliked me from time to time.) I am curious what they will think of my parenting when they have children of their own, and have a greater appreciation for parenthood in general. I don't believe any of us are perfect, and those of us who have that wretched "A type" personality with a smattering of perfectionism can go absolutely stark-raving bonkers if we are trying to judge our parenting by whether our children like us at any given moment.

But motherhood isn't a popularity contest, it isn't even an endurance test although it feels that way on occasion. Motherhood is about being a trustee, a caretaker for another, in this case, we are caretakers for God. God gives us children to raise up in the way they should go, so when they are old, they will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6) Once they are ready to go out on their own, the only thing we can do is to pray for them and give them over to God.

Too often, with those who want to win the motherhood popularity contest, we do our children a great disservice because we never train them up as God wishes. We would rather them like us, than to tell them they are going to go to church. In the effort of being a good parent, we give them too broad of choices for their lives, and when they make the wrong choices, we abdicate our responsibility with the cliché that "children will be children." Yes, but children shouldn't be acting like children when they have their own children.

So, I guess the point of this rambling mess is that Mother's Day should not be the day that we seek glory for having gone to the bother of birthing children, which would require our children to honor us whether they feel like it or not. It should be the time in which mothers around the country ask, "what kind of plant am I?"

For my friends out there who are the surrogates, I love you. There are too many children out there seeking a good mother figure. Provide one for them, whether they are yours or not and Happy Mother's Day to you as well.

Her children rise up and call her happy. Proverbs 31:28

Nasty People?

In my blog travels I have come across two very different sites. One is by a woman in Alaska who wrote a very good piece on dealing with nasty comments by those who leave remarks on your blog. It really was very good advice on dealing with nasty people in any area of life, whether hiding behind anonymity on the internet or up-front, in-your-face people in real life. She was so thorough she even included a flow-chart!

The other is at an “Internet Newspaper” site which is quite opinionated, as the Internet often frees us to be. In this article/blog a man writes how anyone who believes in the God of the three monotheistic religions is wrong. He goes on to post a quite articulate, however, inaccurate accounting of Judaism, Christianity and Islam which is obviously only focusing on partial information as he believes all three are quite insane, war-mongering and violent.

Now, as you may imagine, the latter’s blog really disturbed me. It did not really make me angry, although I know people who would have immediately become defensive about such vitriol* splashed out everywhere for the world to see. I just really felt sorry for him because he misses the entire point of faith, focusing so much on flawed humanity.

Now, the first one really helped me to deal with the second as you could imagine. The fact of the matter is that there are people out there who will not agree with us, and even attack our deepest held faiths and most sacred beliefs. We have a few options on how to handle these things, we could return jab for jab the hate-filled comments, OR we could follow the leadings of Jesus…turn the other cheek, love our enemies, and pray for those who would persecute us.

Too often we (in the name of God, Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham, etc. ___________ fill in your own good and righteous cause here) respond exactly the opposite that our faith dictates we should. We rise to the goading of those who want to see us stumble and fall just so they could say, “see that is exactly my point.” We even make it easy for them to write articulate articles on how crazy and violent religious people are all the while they have the ability in their reason to sit back all cool, calm and collected like without having their beliefs and faith stepped on.

Speaking from a Christian standpoint (because I cannot speak from a Jewish or Muslim one) we are to pray for these people. (No, not that God will smite them.) St. Francis of Assissi tells us to “preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” We are to live our faith, not bitterly fling venom back at those who would fling venom at us, that isn’t want Jesus would want us to do, nor is it what Jesus did.

It saddens me that over the centuries we have so created God in our own image that we truly believe God hates everyone we do.** When the fact of the matter is God tells us to love everyone God does. Whew…that will be a lot of people, even the man who thinks we are all wrong.

* vitriol (vĭt'rē-ōl', -əl) definition #2 in the American Heritage Dictionary, “Bitterly abusive feeling or expression.” OR also definition #2 by WordNet, “abusive or venomous language used to express blame or censure or bitter deep-seated ill will.”

** Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, referencing her priest friend Tom.

Of worth and value...

Good Monday morning! Of course, if you are reading this at another time then, "Good (insert day) (insert time of day!)

Since I have begun this endeavor of blogging, at least once a week, I have been looking more at other's blogs (it's only fair after all), and I find I must ask myself a question....what's the point? I originally started this as a discipline of writing for myself, which one would assume then it wouldn't matter if others read it or not; however, I have discovered that I appreciate it when others read my blog, so maybe my motives have changed.

In looking at other's blogs around blogspot and those I know of in other venues, I have found some really good blogs with a variety of purposes. There are those that are casual and mainly for the purpose of keeping up with friends and family who live far apart (pictures of babies, etc.), there are those which are written on parenting, on gardening, and on cars. There are those like mine which have a decidedly religious point although many times there are many different angles. I have even found a blog where two people post - one inside Gaza and one in Israel about their lives (for those who took my Israel/Palestine study). And in looking at all of these, I have discovered that the really good ones are much like writers of articles in magazines. Some offer 'how-tos', some offer insight and wisdom, some offer quirky recipes, both for life and food.

So after a great deal of research, I have discovered that I do this, as I attempt to do all things, for the glory of God. Yes, sometimes, as it happens, stuff gets in the way, like life and self. Sometimes, strongly held opinions are spouted, or single-mindedness occurs. But I pray that if you do follow my blog on a regular basis, it has helped you grow in your own faith as I continue to grow in mine. We are all on this journey together, and often rely on one another for information about the path, much like OTR truckers do (for my driving friends out there.)

So, this post isn't wrestling with ideas of faith, but ideas of examining motives and why we do things, and if what we are doing is of any worth or value. I hope my weekly blog is of worth and value to those who follow. When it ceases to function in that way, I will cease to blog.

By the way, for those who only check on Monday, I have posted twice since last Monday, so see below. Thanks for all the comments and feedback, they are appreciated.

Reader Service Available

If you will look in the right hand column, you will see where I have allowed my blog to be subscribed to a reader service. What this means is you can click that cute little orange button (Subscribe in a reader) and it will give you a choice of reader services to pick from. I have a friend's blog listed on my Google homepage and I get regular headlines of his updated blogs. Kind of like having a news feed with current headlines. You can play with it. Just something I thought would make life easier for my few loyal readers!

Journey of Faith

I had an opportunity today to be at a hospital which has a labyrinth prayer garden. It generally isn't good when I have an occasion to visit a hospital. It generally means a member of my congregation is there. And this particular hospital is a two-hour drive from my home, so I rarely get the occasion to pray and meditate at this labyrinth.

A labyrinth is not to be confused with a maze in which you can get confused and turned around, a labyrinth is a ancient way of prayer and meditation in which you walk a path that leads you into the center of the labyrinth and follow the same path back out.

The labyrinth at the hospital is based the labyrinth found in the Chartres Cathedral in Chartres, France. (See picture to the left.) It is a very intricate pattern in which you wind your way toward the center. The idea with this type of pattern for a labyrinth is that it draws you inward to a reflective place in which you can commune with and listen to God.

As I began to walk this particular day, I was a little cranky (okay maybe a lot cranky) at the unjustness of life sometimes. "God, I don't understand why people have to get cancer" I groused in my mind.

As I walked in to the labyrinth, and I was struck as always by the path. It is relatively a very short distance (as the crow flies, so to speak) from the entrance to the center. But that isn't the way a labyrinth works. It is a long journey to get to your destination, and even the destination isn't the end, as your journey leads you back out.

As the path wound and twisted, and I walked and prayed, I made the observation that life is like that. It winds, it twists, but we never want to rush to the end, and yet sometimes we do. We rush through life never enjoying the journey.

As I came to the first of the outer circuits, I noticed the annoying prickly holly bushes that were not intrusive when originally planted, but after reaching full size, invaded the outer circuit. If you stayed on the path, you risked pain and discomfort. If you veered off the path, you risked losing your place. (At this time, a risk I was willing to take, but you see the correlation with life.)

Also, there were annoying branches hanging over the path from a near by tree, and I was irritated by the lack of much needed tree trimming. I also noticed various organic debris from various trees, bushes and whatnot which had most likely deposited on the path by the recent storms that had went through the city.

As I continued to walk and whine, and argue and fuss with God, about things I don't understand (which could fill all the oceans), God began to speak to me through the labyrinth. The road is long, and isn't always easy, deal with it. You are going to have things that knock you off the path, get back on. There will be things that bring pain, persevere. Nothing is neat and tidy, get over it. If you are irritated by the lack of care others are showing to a particular issue, do it yourself.

Well, as you can imagine, I wasn't happy with God's apparent lack of compassion to my whining. And then I began the last walk into the center of the labyrinth and heard in the ear of my heart, "leave it here with me." So I stayed in the middle and prayed, and left it there.

I noticed as I returned from the center that I wanted to continue my rant, but I really couldn't get a good head of steam worked up. As I walked, I just kept thinking "leave it here, with me."

I came out of the labyrinth and my spirit felt lighter. I didn't receive any divine revelation that the situation would turn out peachy keen fine just the way I wanted it. The situation had not changed when I returned to the hospital waiting room. Nothing had changed - except my spirit was lighter. I was no longer carrying all the negative whiny thoughts, I had left them with God. God could deal with them.

Some people may wonder what the point is to faith, if it doesn't change anything. Circumstances and situations may not change, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but faith always changes the person with it for the better. I told two of the nicest people in the world today this..."it is one thing to believe...people always say what they believe 'I believe in God' or 'I believe in Jesus', but faith...faith is holding on to your beliefs when everything in the world is trying to knock you off the horse." Okay, so it is a bit of a mixed metaphor, but you get the message.

Hold on to faith, and when things get really rough, take them to God. Even if you are delivering them whining and crying and fussing. But when you get them there...leave them there, with God.