5/12/13 Rev. David McArthur
Mom As Divine Mother
One way we touch the love of God is the role of the mother. When there is a need for healing, for a healing presence, we connect with the figure of the Madonna and Child, of Mother Mary. At that point of pain, of overwhelm, when we feel we are asked to deliver far beyond our perception of our capacity, but we are asked anyway to show up for another, the divine presence shows up in the symbol of motherhood itself. Let that divine connection heal and nurture in that way mothers have of knowing we can step up to what is asked of us. Open that divine connection. It is not some God of power and authority, but of tenderness and caring. We know God is not male or female, yet we open to those divine feminine qualities that mothers embody for us.
All the greatest teachers the world has ever known have brought us awareness of awesome divine love. And every bit of that love and consciousness is seen in the mothers we know. Awaken to that. We know this divine is in us, works as us and through us, and that mothers embody this. In the times they didn’t, when their pain got in their way, when they were limited by their trauma, addiction, or struggle to awaken from their own sleep, remember that forgiveness is significant work, because it is in this relationship that we get to know, to glimpse that divine love.
Severely wounded, a young soldier in Viet Nam called to his momma. Back home, she heard him. “Super Mom” is that absolute divine intervention. We reach for that presence and know it as “momma”!
As her boy reached the difficult years of his early teens, a mother began leaving letters under his pillow “to be read when ever you are alone”. In the first she confided, “I know life is hard now. You are frustrated and nothing is right. I love you more than I can say. I am here if you want to talk. No matter where you go or want ever you do I will always be proud of you and love you.” Their connection deepened. What are you connected with? What are you going home to? Mother is that connection to “I am here for you and will always love you; that will never change” (which is God’s love). Mothers, you are the expression of divine connection. Thank you God, for loving me as “Mom”. And thank you, all moms, for loving us! Thank you!