Midweek Faith Lift
May 17, 2023
Honoring the Human/Divine Feminine
Happy Mother’s Day
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Reflection
May 8, 2023
Tribal elders were moved to tears by the retrieval of a 1,000-year-old Native American canoe from Lake Waccamaw in North Carolina. The Waccamaw Siouan chief, Michael Jacobs, said they sat on the bank and cried tears of joy and sadness, tears of a future for their youth. “Our youth now can touch something that’s tangible.”
“Instinct is an immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there.” - Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Affirmative prayer: Today, I give thanks for the points of spiritual reference in my life. For the stories, history, and truth revealed. I am inspired and comforted by the connections and places of belonging. Thank you, God, forever. Amen.
I love this spiritual reflection because it is about how the discovery of something tangible, something our human selves can touch and see and feel creates a deep sense of love, connection and belonging. Today we celebrate mothers who are very real and give us a sense of love, connection and belonging—on a good day! The tendency, our sincere desire, is to idealize maternal love, forgetting that being a mother is a very human experience with lots of peaks and valleys, disappointments and challenges and all the dimensions of love that the human experience can hold.
I also really love Erma Bombeck, a writer and humorist from my parents’ generation, because what she writes is so honest about the experience of motherhood. What does Erma have to say? Here are some of her best thoughts!
“Mothers are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set to prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how. No mother is all good or all bad, all laughing or all serious, all loving or all angry. Ambivalence rushes through their veins.
~Erma Bombeck
MORE THOUGHTS---
“I love my mother for all the times she said absolutely nothing.... Thinking back on it all, it must have been the most difficult part of mothering she ever had to do: knowing the outcome, yet feeling she had no right to keep me from charting my own path. I thank her for all her virtues, but mostly for never once having said, "I told you so.”
― Erma Bombeck
AND THEN THERE ARE THOSE TIMES…..
“When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it's a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.”
― Erma Bombeck
ERMA ON THE FAMILY…
“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.”
― Erma Bombeck
AND FINALLY
“...I remember thinking how often we look, but never see...we listen, but never hear...we exist, but never feel. We take our relationships for granted. A house is only a place. It has no life of its own. It needs human voices, activity and laughter to come alive.”
― Erma Bombeck, A Marriage Made in Heaven: Or Too Tired for an Affair
Thank you Erma Bombeck for keeping it real, being honest and speaking words of human wisdom about this whole energy of being a human mother who has Divine Wisdom but doesn’t always have the energy or wherewithal to access it. The truth is that while you are parenting children and even when they are adults, clarity and wisdom on how to respond, how to show up and how to actively love your children can be a mystery. Erma also talks a lot about keeping a sense of humor, which is a lifesaver in meeting all of what life and your family and children serve up!
What is true is that in our human experience we are imperfect in all that we do. We pray and endeavor to show up as our best selves, keeping it real and spiritual at the same time. That is not always an easy path; most often it is not. Learning to be present to our own experience, to practice that pause that allows the energy of Divine Wisdom to be seen in the moment of truth when we are sorely tested; that is the path of parenting, of being in relationship. Sometimes we meet the challenge and sometimes we do not. That is why forgiveness is such a significant theme in Scripture, for sure. We need a lot of grace!
Another contemporary writer/researcher who speaks about this is Brene Brown. In The Gifts of Imperfection, she writes:
Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, “No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.” It’s going to bed at night thinking, “Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brene Brown
The theme for this Mother’s Day to me is for us all to know that we are truly worthy of love and belonging, no matter what and a deep appreciation for the bravery required to become a parent no matter how you do it. The opening story is so powerful in that it creates that sense of history that a sacred place and a specific object can offer. In finding that 1000-year-old canoe, the elders connect the youth with the very human link of history that tells them they belong. Touching your history is deeply spiritual and powerful.
We all shed tears at those moments when we have experienced loss and when we discover sacred connections that touch us deeply. It is the human condition to want and need those moments of grace, of universal love energy that make us all part of the whole, the human family that is so deeply connected on this planet. What is your sacred or holy place that moves you to tears with its beauty and sacred energy? Whose memory rests deep in your heart that resonates an abiding love that is life giving? It may not be your biological mother; it may be one who cared for you tenderly and with a kindness you didn’t know was possible.
That experience is your “immersion into the universal current of life where the histories of people are connected, where we are able to know everything, because it's all written there.” When we understand and see with our heart, when we feel deeply that energy of love; that is our true connection with the Divine Feminine energy within us. I like to call those times “moment of grace” when we know and understand without even knowing how. That is the most powerful kind of knowing…the knowing of the heart.
There is a scripture in the Gospel of John that speaks to this kind of energy. It is
John 1:14-18
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.( NRSV- Updated Edition)
John is telling us that the physical existence of Jesus is of the highest importance in our spiritual understanding. John the Baptist cries out that Jesus has come before him because from the fullness of Christ, we have all received grace upon grace. What the gospel writer, John goes on to say is that while we have the law which is of supreme importance to the Jews, it is the energy of Jesus that brings us grace and truth. Jesus is close to the heart of God, and by that we know the energy of Love and what we call the Divine Feminine!
How do we share this grace, this kind of love with one another? I share with you from the article “Mother Love is Eternal Love” by Jessica Heim Brouwer, found in Unity 4 Today News- May 9, 2023 online publication. She writes:
In our day-to-day lives, there are qualities of motherly love that any of us can call forth to nurture not only our children but ourselves, and others. Whether or not we are mothers, some of the best ways we can show up for our family, friends, and colleagues are some of the simplest acts of mindfulness, such as:
Nurturing people and work that matter to us by putting in the time, effort, and care that allow mutual growth.
Practicing patience for people and processes in life over which we have no control.
Accepting and supporting each other in times of fear, uncertainty, self-doubt, and loneliness while remaining bolstered in faith that everything will work out.
Being generous when we are able—no matter if that means giving physical resources or simply giving someone the benefit of the doubt.
Protecting the things that are precious to us—whether that’s a home, a relationship, a special project, or the natural environment.
On this Mother’s Day, may you know love and grace and may you laugh a lot!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb