Chalice Lighting
Every day is a renewal,
Every morning the daily miracle.
This joy you feel is life.-Gertrude Stein
We light our chalice this morning in celebration
of renewal, joy, and mothers everywhere.Call To Worship
As we come together, may we find cessation of whatever personal turmoil accompanies us. May we seek forgiveness for harsh words uttered, or healing words left unsaid.
May each of us find strength to endure difficulty; may we find acceptance of those we do not understand.
And, as this season becomes more glorious with each passing day, may we be aware of each and every miracle around us, and be glad!
On this day when custom reminds us to remember those who gave us life and nurtured our early years, let us give thanks for each person, female or male, family or friend, who loved and guided us to be who we are today.
May we find ways to express that love in words and in the ongoing integrity of our lives. And let us be supporters of each other in this uncertain venture that is our shared life, that our lives may be strengthened and enriched.
-Polly Leland-Mayer
Reading – Rev. Joan Gelbein and Henry Ticknor
Henry: So, have you seen this week’s edition of Newsweek ?
Joan: No, I don’t think so. Why?
Henry: It contains an interesting interview with Barbara Bush.
Joan: Does it ‘tell all’?
Henry: What’s to tell? Anyway, my point is she really ‘disses’ Mothers’ Day.
Joan: Barbara Bush is against Mothers? That seems almost unpatriotic and very un-Republican---family values and all of that….!
Henry: No, No…Just against Mother’s Day! And, actually, I’m not sure that she isn’t right.
Joan: Just a minute here. Let’s remember who is evaluating whom. You fathers have all sorts of “days.”
Henry Like……?
Joan There’s Washington’s Birthday, when we recognize old George as ‘Father of our Country.” And, The Fourth of July recognizes those “Founding Fathers.” I suppose that you men even believe that Labor Day is for our ‘laboring’ Fathers?
Henry: And I suppose that you’re going to insist that Thanksgiving primarily celebrates our Pilgrim Fathers? And, that New Year’s Eve revolves exclusively around the work of Father Time?
Joan: Yes, Henry, that IS what I’m suggesting!! And, equal time is what I stand for!
Henry: OK. So tell me where this idea of Mothers’ Day came from.
Joan: A woman named Anna Jarvis probably picked up the idea from one of our UU foremothers, Julia Ward Howe. In 1870, Howe wanted to set aside a day in May or June as an International Day of Peace to be observed by mothers around the world.
Henry: I wonder if Jarvis knew about the European Custom of Mothering Sunday? This was a mid-Lent celebration. If you knew what was good for you, --- you returned home and paid homage to your mother. I picked this up in seminary.
Joan: Now, there’s a useful bit of knowledge!
Henry: I really like Julia Ward Howe’s idea of Mothers, everywhere, for Peace.
Joan: In any case, I think Anna Jarvis insisted that this was HER idea. She never mentioned either Julia Ward Howe, or Mothering Sunday. And, actually, I think I read somewhere that she didn’t get along too well with her own mother and never became a mother herself.
Henry: Go figure! So how did she get Mother’s Day to happen?
Joan: She convinced several luminaries of the day, including William Jennings Bryan, to help her champion the idea of a special day for Mothers -- to be celebrated early in May. Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first Mothers’ Day in 1914 and the rest is, as they say, a Hallmark moment.
Henry: You know what? I think Mrs. Bush may be on to something! But, just in case hers is an idea whose time hasn’t come, I guess I will do my best to make this a special day for remembrance and celebration.
Joan: You, Henry, are a fast learner! You have a great future in our ministry!
Sermon – Part I, Henry Ticknor
When our daughters were little girls, we read to them every night before bed. As I recall, a favorite story of theirs and ours was P.D. Eastman’s “Are You My Mother?” In the story a little bird breaks out of its shell just as the mother bird has gone off to find supper. Now this precocious fledgling realizes that she is all alone in the nest and so she decides to go off and look for her mother.
Needless to say it was a long tumble from the nest to the ground and since the baby bird didn’t know how to fly she had to set off on foot to find Mom. “Now I will go and find my mother,” she said. Unfortunately, having been born in the empty nest the baby bird doesn’t know exactly who or what she should be looking for.
So the rest of the story involves a series of encounters with other baby critters such as a kitten, a chicken, a puppy, a cow, a wrecked car, and my personal favorite, a steam shovel. Each time the baby bird approached a new animal or object, baby bird would ask, “Are you my Mother?” And each time the answer would come back, “no.” In growing frustration the baby bird says, “ I did have a mother. I know I did. I have to find her. I will. I will!”
Well, the crisis of this little story occurs when the baby bird his lifted high up in the air by the steam shovel and wails out “Where am I. I want to go home. I want my mother.” Well as stories go this one comes to a blessedly brief conclusion as the steam shovel plops the baby bird back into the nest and she is reunited with her mother. Amen and blessed be.
When Joan and I were discussing this morning’s service, I indicated my desire to lift up this very question, “Who is my mother?” As you can tell from the title of our service I(n) S(earch) O(f) mother that we are borrowing from the personal ads found in many newspapers and magazines. So this morning we are ISO: Mom. But moms come with lots of names. The question is, which mom are we searching for?
Are we searching for that person we called mom or mommy? Are we searching for a stepmother, a grandmother, a mother-in-law? Are we searching for a birth mother or an adoptive mother or even a surrogate mother? Are searching for that non-relative who always seemed to be available to hear our stories, to hug us when we needed cheering up, and who always seemed to be on our side when we seemed to be up against the world? Hallmark seems to have reduced Mother’s Day to its lowest common denominator-one sentiment fits all. But is this what Mother’s Day should be about?
Many of us, if not most, know our histories well. I know, for example, that I am the fifth child and third son born to Elizabeth Ticknor. She was the daughter of Julia and the granddaughter of Laura Elizabeth and the great grand daughter of another Julia. I also know that my wife, Nancy, is the mother of our two daughters and that they are in the process of writing their own stories. But for some this genealogy business isn’t so easy.
Now Nancy, and I tell this with her permission, has two mothers. She has a birth mother who gave birth to her, and she has an adoptive mother who loved her totally and unconditionally from the time she was six weeks old and whom Nancy called “mom”. Nancy and the woman she called “mom” were great friends and companions until this fine person died a year and a half ago. The loss of a parent is always difficult—at some unconscious level our parents are meant to live forever, to always be there for us in good times and bad.
Mothers are immortal. Mothers don’t die. A mother doesn’t die and leave children, even adult children behind. A father’s death, though traumatic, doesn’t seem to inspire such indignation of assumption. It violates our assumptions about the world a little less. To some degree, given what we know about life expectancy, we expect our fathers to die before our mothers. But Nancy struggled with loss because in many ways it reminded her that she had now lost two mothers. Our daughters are the only blood relatives she knows.
And so for many, this Mother’s Day is a bittersweet day--joys and sorrows in equal mixture. Joys at the remembrance of a person who gave us life; whom we loved and who loved us in return. When adoptees lose their mother not only are their lives filled with the sorrow at the loss of a life companion and champion; but also there is the sorrow that comes from having no knowledge of one’s biological roots that determine everything from hair color to one’s personality.
Nature gives us birth and nurturance gives us life. But at some point, unlike those who can trace their family histories, who can find their blood roots, the adoptee must as Betty Jean Lifton writes in her book Lost and Found: the Adoption Experience, “must give birth to one’s own self to recover and rewrite one’s own history.”
Furthermore, mothers of adopted children often must deal with the challenge of raising a child in today’s world, as they simultaneously acknowledge the pain of not being able to bear and give birth to a child of their own. This must be an incredible balancing act requiring great inner strength, determination and above all love.
And what of those women who have found themselves in the role of stepmother. Surely the “wicked” stepmother of fairy tales is a metaphor for our own fears about who really is our mother. In today’s society there are more able and capable stepmothers than ever and they are helping to raise capable and productive children. For some, instant motherhood is a totally new and sometimes difficult adventure. “You’re not my mother,” screams the adolescent child to this new adult that had entered into his /her life. “My real mother wouldn’t make me make my bed or eat all my dinner. You are so mean.”
The hurt and pain that these words can carry can mask even the best efforts to create a new family and a new home. But usually it is not the person who is the object of these outbursts, but the child’s perceived lack of control over his or her life and the perceived loss from the initial separation from their mother. “Are you my mother?” shouts the child. “No, but I can love you and teach you and protect you if we agree to work on this together.”
There is a poem by a former UUA trustee titled “When I am an old woman.” In a humorous way she writes of the freedoms we expect when the kids are grown up and on their own, the dog dies, and we can get on with our lives. In part she says:
When I am an old woman, I shall wear mostly jeans
And T-shirts that say outrageous things
And I shall spend my social security on causes,
and UUA books,
and say we have no money for canvass dinners.
But more and more grandparents are being asked to raise their grandchildren. “Are you my mother? No, but I am your grandmother. And I love you dearly.”
“But where is my mother?” the child responds.
The answers are as many and a varied as the stories of our lives. This grand parent is now both grand in years and once again a parent. Facing the challenges and uncertainties that come to those we affectionately refer to as ‘mature’ adults, suddenly these seniors are once again driving carpools, helping with homework and hanging out at the mall.
And lastly, let us think of those women whose children are no longer a part of their lives. Whose children have died, have been raised by others, whose children have abandoned or rejected them. They too, deserve to be honored on this day. They too are mothers who remember birthdays, who may still ache for their losses and cherish their memories. Let us honor all mothers on this day, for motherhood is not a temporary inconvenience or pleasure, it is a lifetime identity.
Mom, birth-mom, step-mom-- women can and do take on many identities when they take on motherhood. Regardless of what role you play—even if it is future mom—know that someone, somewhere is in search of you.
Let me close with the words of Richard Gilbert:
We give thanks for those who have reared us, who have nourished us through sleepless nights and restless days,
Who have seen us through the good times and the bad,
Who have celebrated our triumphs
And suffered our defeats.
We are thankful for their nurturing spirit
Their gentle touch and their firm hand
Their familiar laugh and the sympathetic tears,
We pay silent tribute to the loved ones no longer among us,
And speak soft thanksgiving to those who are.
May we who have been nurtured
Also be nurturers of those who follow;
May we be part of that current of humanity
That courses through time and space.
And so, on this Mothers’ day 2002 we give thanks for Mom—by whatever name you are known.
Sermon – Part II – Rev. Joan Gelbein
I remember, when I was in my early twenties, I picked up a postcard in “the Village” (Greenwich Village in New York City, where I was going to Art School). It depicted a line drawing of a young wan and naked woman, standing on a city street, holding on to a street light. She looked to be a little depressed, a little neurotic – in the Woody Allen or Jules Feiffer smart-alec-y and self-deprecating New York style. The caption read, “Mother loved me, but she died!”
I kept that card a long time, reluctant to part with it, along with other items of personal introspection from that developmental stage of precious self-pity when an excess of poetry emerges.
My mother hadn’t died.
I wasn’t quite sure, at the time, why that card was worth keeping; what it meant to me. I thought it was funny. It was, perhaps, an icon.
When my mother finally DID die, it was a long dying. In her middle sixties, some small strokes left her aphasic, unable to speak. But, surprisingly, there was no rehabilitation, only a slow progressive deterioration over time. Her last seven years were spent in a comatose existence, in a nursing home, until, at age 76, she actually died.
It was a particularly difficult long passage of time for me. I was unable to express any feelings and tended to keep my distance.
And, I certainly didn’t carry on when she finally did die – I remember saying to someone, “It’s as if she had died a long time ago.”
And so, it was.
I realized later that I probably saw – painfully – a more literal enactment of my prolonged childhood experience of her “not being there for me;” a turning into herself --and away from me.
Well, I’m not that vulnerable young person anymore, who was holding onto a street light to attract attention and sympathy, while whining about my life’s ironies and tragedies.
I’ve come to see my mothers’ life in a full array of pleasures and pains, contributions and need, abilities and ambiguities. Much like any human life. Blessed in some ways and cursed in others. What could have been, or should have been is not relevant any longer.
The spectrum of those of us with wounds runs wide – from the children who lived with mothers whose behavior was abusive, or neglectful - to those whose mothers were absent because they were sick and needed care themselves, or those whose mothers died when they were still young and vulnerable.
Some of our mothers were often depressed and distant, some were needy or sad, unpredictable or borderline. Some mothers didn’t know that things they did, or words they said hurt us --- and some did know and did it anyway.
Some were volatile; some passive. Some needed help and caring themselves and may not have known how to get it.
But, it all adds up, for lots of us, to some dark empty places in our gut- and mind- and heart; some factor within our personality we always have to reckon with, whether we are fully aware of causes and consequences, or only dimly so.
Don Miguel Ruiz has written a popular little book called, “The Four Agreements.” Ruiz wants us to become aware of self-limiting beliefs, some of which originate at home, in relationship with our parents.
“But the most important agreements,” says, “are the ones you made with yourself. In these agreements you tell yourself who you are, what you feel, what you believe, and how to behave. The result is what you call your personality.”
The First Agreement Ruiz describes is to “Be Impeccable with Your Word.” “Speak with integrity,” he says, “Say only what you mean. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”
The word, not just a sound or a symbol, is a force that has the power to create the events of a life. Ruiz tells a little story to illustrate the magic spell that can be cast with words.
“There was a woman who was intelligent and had a very good heart. She had a daughter whom she loved very much. One night she came home from a bad day at work, tired, full of emotional tension, and with a terrible headache. She wanted peace and quiet, but her daughter was singing and jumping happily. The daughter was unaware of how her mother was feeling; she was in her own world, and she was jumping and singing louder and louder. … at a certain moment, the mother lost control. Angrily, she looked at her beautiful little girl and said, ‘Shut up! You have an ugly voice. Can you just shut up!’
“The truth is that the mother’s tolerance for any noise was nonexistent; it was not that the little girl’s voice was ugly. But the daughter believed what her mother said, and in that moment made an agreement with herself. After that she no longer sang because she believed her voice was ugly … Everything changed in the little girl because of this new agreement: She believed she must repress her emotions in order to be accepted and loved.
“This spell was cast upon her by ... her own mother. … who didn’t notice what she did with her word. She didn’t notice that she used black magic and put a spell on her daughter.”
These types of spells are difficult to break because the word of another has created a faulty internalized picture of oneself. Breaking a spell requires that we make a new agreement based on truth. Honesty is the most important part of being impeccable with your word. And you can measure the impeccability of your word by your level of self-love.
Here is the point for so many of you, who, like me, have found our life-experience based on imperfect nurture.
Pack up the old baggage and donate it to Good Will. It’s no longer useful or necessary. Go, now, instead, IN SEARCH OF – Mom!
Many of us, of course, find positive caring women mentors where we work, in the neighborhood, teachers; in precious friendships, or with other family members. That’s all well and good.
But I have to tell you, where I seek the only authentic and healing Mother I need and long for, is not around me, but inside me. If I don’t succeed in building a good mother in myself, I go down crippled.
I don’t point to this lightly because it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever faced, and will continue to face. If I ignore what my mother ignored; if I neglect what my mother neglected; if I don’t open myself to love abundantly and cherish generously, where my mother fell short, may she rest in peace, I will never be a whole person.
My mother can no longer live inside me, distant, self-absorbed. The mother that gave birth to me has had to be gently, carefully, compassionately laid to rest with gratitude for what went well and was life-affirming. The good-bye must be something I’m willing to do, and something I’m willing to celebrate.
And at the same time, I know I am responsible for my own life. I must be willing to do the hard work of reversing this inner child’s confused and unsure self-understanding that has gotten stuck in the interior folds of my psyche, and aspire, instead, to joy and health.
What do you do when you need a mother; when you’ve lost yours for any number of reasons? You become one – you work to gradually build an interior loving presence who is confident and reliable; who cherishes and challenges you; who is your friend, who will never leave you.
The possibilities are endless. May all of us – pay tribute to our birth mothers – to our adopted mothers and mentors – and to that mother within who courageously guards our well-being and ushers us into the full bloom of creative and compassionate maturity.
Your Mother within can whisper softly to you, some day, these words: Your years in my care have blessed me as I have watched the unfolding of your life. It is with pride and tenderness that I now release that life to follow its own promise. I love you. I believe in you. I wish only the best for you.
May this holiday’s message be one of hope, and peace.
Benediction
Amen.
