THE ACT OF MOTHERING

There was once a baby who was very quiet. He never said ‘Mama’ or ‘Dada’. He never said anything. When he was three he still hadn’t said anything, and his mum and dad were worried. When he was five he still hadn’t said anything and they were more worried than ever.

Then, one day when he was having his dinner, he said, ‘Not enough salt!

‘Goodness me,’ said his mum. ‘You can talk! Why is it all these years you’ve never said anything?’

‘Well,’ said the boy, ‘you see, up till now everything’s been all right.’

Today is Mothering Sunday and we celebrate Mothering in its variety of manifestations. The name is very important: Mothering Sunday, rather than Mothers’ Day. Because what we are celebrating is the act of “Mothering”, not simply those who are mothers. The day itself grew out of the tradition of visiting the Mother-church and in mediaeval times taking an offering for presentation at the altar. In Victorian times this developed into the custom of children who lived and worked away from home joining their families for the day and bringing small gifts for their mothers.

Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday in Lent, the mid-point. So it was also known as Refreshment Sunday or Laetare Sunday from the Latin word “rejoice”. It marks a break in the penitential season of Lent, it at once looks back to the joyful birth of Jesus Christ and forward to the events surrounding his death.

WHAT DOES 'MOTHERING' MEAN TODAY?

But in our pluralistic society does Mothering Sunday work any more? Family life now comes in many shapes and sizes. Families are made and remade. The extended family of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins is often replaced by an extended family of step-parents, step-grandparents, step-brothers and sisters. Men as well as women take responsibility for the raising of children. Some people choose to bring children up by themselves, some have that choice thrust upon them. We are much more aware of the sorrows of mothering as well as the joys; the pain of those who longed to have a child but never did, of those who’ve experienced miscarriage, still birth, the death of a child. We are much more open about such matters. And there are other hurts surrounding Mothering Sunday. There will be many here whose mothers are no longer with us, those whose mothers are frail and elderly, those who have difficult relationships with their mothers or who are estranged from them. Those who remember their childhoods with mixed emotions. Is Motherhood too difficult a concept to be celebrated any more?

The following story is told by an American theologian, Miroslav Volf, in his book “Free of Charge” which is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official Lent Book for this year.

“The first thing I saw was a tear – a huge, unforgettable tear in the big brown eye of a ten-year-old girl. Then I saw tears in her mother’s eyes. And in all these tears, just enough joy was mixed with pain to underscore that pain’s severity: their joy at seeing him, their three-month-old brother and son, and their intense pain that it was the first time they’d seen him since he was just two days old, when they’d kissed him good-bye. I sensed in those tears the ache that he, flesh of their flesh, was being brought to them for a brief visit by two strangers who were now his parents, and the affliction of knowing that the joy of loving him as a mother and sister would never be theirs.

The joy and the pain of those tears led me to a repentance of sorts. My image of mothers who relinquished their children for adoption, though not as bad as that of the fathers involved, was not exactly positive either. I could not shake the feeling that there was something deficient in such an act…To give one’s child to another, it had seemed to me, was to fail in the most proper duty of a parent: to love no matter what….

My image of birth mothers has changed: “She who does not care quite enough” has become “she who selflessly gives.” …Back at home…I shed tears over the beauty and the tragedy of her love.”

(Miroslav Wolf, Free of Charge (Zondervan, 2005) pp 11-12)

When we look at the Church’s great model for Mothering, the Virgin Mary, Our Lady, we can see that mixture of joy and sorrow; we can see the messiness of family life. Pregnant before she was married, she was in danger of being dismissed quietly, by the man to whom she was engaged. Fortunately he believed the angel who appeared to him in a dream. And their home circumstances left a lot to be desired. Forced onto the road in the final stages of her pregnancy so that they could be taxed, giving birth in a squalid out-house, fleeing as refugees to a foreign land. It’s not an auspicious start. And the gospel reading recalls the chilling prophecy “and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” , a prophecy which was fulfilled on Good Friday, as Mary waited at the foot of the Cross and watched the terrible agony of her Son’s death. Our pattern for mothering is not, therefore, the sickly sweet mother of “Mother’s Day” cards, but a real, flesh and blood, life-experienced, mother.

THE QUALITY OF MOTHERING

So how do we define the quality of “mothering”? One dictionary defined “motherly” as “caring, protective and kind”, while another said “to look after somebody with great care and affection, sometimes to an excessive degree”. Both are reasonably informative definitions, but seem to lack something. Then I came across a Children’s Society poster of a few year’s ago. It showed the face of a child in great distress. The slogan was

“What I need is a good listening to”. It bears repeating “What I need is a good listening to”.

Perhaps this is the crucial starting point of good mothering, listening to, being aware of, taking notice of. Because without listening, the care given becomes mechanical, one size fits all. The needs expressed by a crying baby are quite different from those of a frustrated toddler, and different again from those of a belligerent teenager. Of course listening to is just the start, it results in action. A mother responds to a baby’s cry by feeding her, or changing her nappy or rocking her.

Last week I put a question to my Spiritual Director “What does it mean to honour you Father and Mother?” His reply both surprised and intrigued me: “perhaps it means: to listen to”.

So lets put these two acts of listening together, that of a parent listening to a child and of a child listening to parent. Real listening requires those qualities that St Paul refers to in our New Testament reading “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience”. Where families really listen to each other there is a secure foundation for loving action to result. Remember how Mary “pondered these things in her heart” and how at the wedding at Cana she knew that her son could rescue the situation. She was a listener, an observer and through that she had wisdom and understanding and could act in the right way at the right time.

MOTHERING BEYOND THE IMMEDIATE FAMILY

I would also like to suggest that listening should be applied to the wider Christian family. We speak of Mother Church, and I suppose for us that’s the Anglican church, not only the Church of England but also the wider Anglican communion. We are a troubled communion with several issues threatening to divide us, not least the issue of women bishops and gay relationships. There are great debates going on in the Church, e-mails and letters fly around the globe, conferences and meetings are held. Words are spoken and written. But do we truly listen, or are we merely waiting for the other to be quiet so that we can put in our two-pennies-worth. Our Mother Church needs us to exercise those qualities of mothering towards each other on her behalf. She needs us to truly listen to each other, to acknowledge each other’s point of view, to accept its authenticity. Among Anglicans there needs to be “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience”.

There’s another area in which the concept of Mothering is used which is close to our hearts here at St John’s. One of the big concerns within our Church Family is for the environment for Mother Earth. In our Lent Course which continues on Thursday in St Peter’s Chapel, we have been looking at a whole range of environmental issues and options for action. We have acknowledged the beauty and wonder of the Earth and we are trying to listen to the story of limited natural resources, of the devastation of the rain-forests, of pollution, of over-use of water and energy. And from that listening grows action, we’ve looked at the actions we already take and are thinking about what additional steps we should take to help preserve the wonders of Mother Earth for future generations.

So, this Mothering Sunday let’s remember all those who have listened to us, let’s celebrate the attention given and the loving action that resulted. But don’t let’s stop there, let’s cultivate the art of listening, and let’s learn to act on what we hear not on what we wish we’d heard.

Penny Sayer
St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea

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