Mother

To mother is to give birth. This can be physically growing and bringing a baby into the world from the womb. As amazing as that transitional moment is for the mothering one and the one being born into a new existence, it's just the beginning of the mothering act. Countless moments birth the personality and the spirit of the other.

While most religions encourage us to love ourselves and, in that sense, to birth ourselves, we can't do it alone. An infant, a puppy, a plant, even a star must be taken in to a loving world for it to survive much less to thrive. In vain do we try to love ourselves if someone, usually many someones, hasn't loved us along the way.

The ideal mother is personified in Mary, the mother of Jesus. She carried and birthed a mysterious life. She protected and loved it. Ultimately, she gave it back to the world. She realized she was a caretaker with a life on loan to her for the good of all.

This ideal of "mother" lives in all of us, men and women alike. We all have opportunities when we are called to carry a life and help it develop into its potential. We do this more or less gracefully. Even the most heinous criminal may have moments when he or she does carry and help someone become better than they are. We don't necessarily hear about those moments when someone commits a vicious action. Too often, we let the vicious action(s) define one of our brothers or sisters instead of looking at the whole of this person's existence. We are capable of murdering one person and generously loving another.

This ideal of "mother" sets the bar really high and most of us don't have one mother who reaches that level of perfection; likewise, most of us don't achieve that level of perfection in moments when we are called to be a mother. We have to look at the whole when we look at who mothered us and who we are as mothers.

In my case, for example, my biological mother fed and clothed me well. She nursed me when I was sick. She was incapable of birthing my spiritual and emotional well-being. My father did those things with the help of many others--Aunt Agnes, Sister Michaelene, Sister Amadeus, Winky and Emma, Aunt Rosy, Grandma Kolarik, Tom K., Mrs. Finn, and my best friend, Joan. It took a village of men and women to birth me. If we're honest, it takes that many mothers to birth and raise all of us.

As mothers, it's important that we welcome other mothers into the lives of our children. Step-mothers, aunts, grandmothers, fathers, teachers, and mentors contribute to the development of the lives put in our care by the universe. Our children need endless mothers.

I'm grateful to the ideal of mothering and to the many mothers who contributed to my well-being. This blog is for my mothers and the mother in all of us. Roxie