AS ONE IS COMFORTED BY HIS MOTHER...

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God… (1 John 4:7)

I like to remember, this time of year, that Mother's Day is not simply one of those “Hallmark holidays,” an occasion manufactured for the selling of cards. Mother's Day has an honorable history of development from a proclamation of Julia Ward Howe in 1870 in which she calls upon mothers to help deliver their sons and husbands from the ravages of war and for all mothers to dedicate themselves to finding non-violent means for nations to settle their conflicts. So much for Apple Pie…

This tradition is important and instructive for us, because it lifts up the life-giving and life-saving role of mothers in the life of the world.  In fact, it occurs to me that if Mother's Day were on the liturgical calendar of the Church (which it is not), its Old Testament reading could be Isaiah 66:13, where God says, “As one is comforted by a mother, so I will comfort you.” In what we Christians call “the scriptures,” the truth of God’s saving relationship with us is most often delivered as metaphor, and here in Isaiah the metaphor of a mother’s love is invoked to describe nothing less than the love of God.

The description of a loving father, a loving mother, a loving parent is one of the most frequently used pictures in the Bible.  Jesus describes himself as a mother hen, and he tells the story of a father—waiting longingly for a rebellious son’s homecoming—to teach us what God is like. Jesus calls God abba, which is not just “father,” but “daddy.” And Isaiah speaks of God as our loving, comforting mother.

If we put these pictures and metaphors together, I believe we can transpose the message of John’s first letter—cited above—to read, “Love is from Mom.” Since what John actually writes is, “Love is from God,” that might sound a little flippant, or a little cute, but it reminds us that we have a God whose love for us is not just that of a father, but of Daddy; not just a mother, but “Mom.”

This side of heaven, where we look at ultimate things through what St. Paul calls a “clouded window,” we have no more complete illustration of the graciousness of God’s unconditional love for us than that of a parent for a child. And, okay, on Mother’s Day, let’s say a mother for a child.

When a mother first holds her newborn or newly adopted baby in her arms, she does not say, “As soon as you grow up and become the person I want you to be, then I will love you.” She does not say, “In those times when you are good, then I will love you.” We know what she says: “I love you – just the way you are – just because you’re my child!”

I believe this is the image that is intended in the Bible’s use of father and mother for God. Not the stern taskmaster, but a parent of unconditional love whose life is devoted to the child.

Certainly whenever we use this picture – this metaphor – of God as a loving mother, we need to acknowledge that for some the picture doesn’t seem to register--those for whom a Mother’s Day is a day of loss or painful remembrance. I have not been in that place; but whatever our own personal experience may be, let us know that the reason the Bible uses the picture in the first place is that God is love, and Love is from God. And God loves all children in a way that serves as a model for all mothers and fathers.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe a Mom’s love serves as a model for God! If Mom is chatting on the sidewalk with a friend, and her two-year-old wanders into the street, and Mom sees a car bearing down on him, Mom doesn’t step back and say, “Well, he’s been pretty naughty lately….” We know what Mom does: Without a second’s hesitation she hurls herself into the street and throws her child to safety. Even if… ….   What’s more, she’d do the same thing for her mouthy fourteen-year-old who isn’t as cute anymore!

Jesus assures us that God does, indeed love us just as we are, and the way God saves his – her – beloved children from sin and death is by standing between them and that deathly power (in the event the Church calls “the cross”), just as any parent would throw herself into the path of that car to save her child. A love that is unconditional and doesn’t stop to calculate whether the child “deserves” to be saved or not. Love is from Mom.

~~~

Caryl's mother, Olive, and my mother, Vi. A couple of fiercely loving Moms!
(I see a dazed look in the eyes of these two good men--our Dads.)

~ ~ ~

The other day I

…found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

A word that sent me into a past

where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I , in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

                                                                                 ~Billy Collins, “The Lanyard”

~ ~ ~

To My Mother

I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
foresaw the worst that I might do,

and forgave before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed. 

                                   ~Wendell Berry

TO BE KNOWN BY NAME... An Easter Meditation

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb... She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!”   ~from the Easter gospel of John 20:1-18

My favorite professor at the seminary – and the favorite of many – was Gerhard Frost, of blessed memory. He was a man of inner strength and outward gentleness. One day early in that school year we met each other out walking in the seminary neighborhood. I was one of dozens, if not hundreds, of new students he had that semester alone – not to mention all the semesters stretching back through the years – and we had not had much conversation beyond the teacher-student exchange in the classroom.

What I remember about that casual meeting on the sidewalk almost fifty years ago is how badly he wanted to call me by my name. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice, until, with a sort of defeated sigh, he apologized as he asked for my name. Later, we became neighbors, colleagues, and friends, and I am proud to say that, to his dying day, Gerhard knew my name!

It’s an odd recollection, I know, remembering--all these years later--how someone wanted to say my name. But Gerhard Frost knew that one of the most deeply meaningful gifts we can give one another is to be called by name. It is, in fact, a godly gift. “I have called you by name,” says God in Isaiah, “you are mine.”

Baptism is sometimes called Christening – “a naming.” In infant baptism, the parents give their child her god-name, and they say, “God has called you by name, you belong to God. We have called you by name, you are ours.” In the Bible, to name is to know deeply.  “I know my sheep, and my sheep know me,” says Jesus.

I sometimes tell my confirmation kids that one way to understand why we don’t want to “take God’s name in vain” is to reflect on how none of likes to have our own name made fun of, or used to hurt or ridicule. And that silly old line, “Your mama wears combat boots,” whatever it means, means very little about combat boots, but it’s my mother’s name you’re deriding! (There is nothing so common, that is at the same time so uniquely treasured, as the name “Mom.”)

When I was five years old, my dad was taken away by ambulance in the middle of the night, with what turned out to be a burst brain aneurism. I don’t know if the doctors there in the Huron, South Dakota hospital stemmed the flow, or if it ceased on its own, but he was stabilized in preparation to be taken to St. Mary's in Rochester. Just before that departure, the doctors told our mom that Barby and Betty and little Bobby and I could come in briefly and say hi to Dad. But Mom had to tell us what the doctors told her: “He may not know you.”  

Perhaps it’s my earliest memory—the door opens into the darkened room, my dad, his head swathed in bandages, opens his eyes and says, “Hi, Dicky.”

I wonder if to be known is what it means to be fully alive. It is certainly at the heart of what it means to be loved.

Has a name ever been said with more gentle preciousness than there in the tomb garden? Mary is beside herself with grief and loss. Blinded by her sorrow at the unspeakable events she has witnessed, she doesn’t know Jesus. But he knows her. And he calls her by name. “Mary.”

We may not know, but God knows. And God knows us. This deep knowing allows us to be fully who we are. Like the toddler who—becoming himself—says, “I do it… I do it.” And of course he must do it – with Mommy and Daddy standing by. The ones who named him. Who will let him wander but never let him go. “I have called you by name, you are mine.”

 

A servant-girl, seeing Peter in the firelight, stared at him and said,

“This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I

do not know the man!"  ~Luke 22

The most profound thing about the story of Peter’s sad denial of his friend Jesus is not the part where Jesus tells Peter, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times,” or even Peter’s bitter tears when he hears that cock-crow in the lonesome distance. It is what Jesus said to Peter in the same breath with which he had predicted his denial: “...But, Peter, when you have come to yourself, you must turn and strengthen the others.” And he did! And he did. Jesus knew who Peter was. He knew him. Did this knowing help to make Peter who he was?

The tragic undercutting of the Gospel’s message—from the very beginning—has been the small-minded pronouncement that the Christian life is a matter of fearfully keeping a set of rules—even commandments—rather than what it is: A declaration of identity; belonging. The great guide for living will never be rules. (How good would we have to be?....) Or what is sometimes called “religion.” Or fear. (“Do not be afraid” is one of the most frequent assurances given to us in the scriptures.) It is identity: “Remember who you are.” “I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.” “I have called you by name, you are mine.” “Mary.” “Dicky.”

And if we turn our eyes to the cosmos—if we feel, in the words of the song, that “we’re lost out here in the stars”—our faith is in a God who is big enough—and small enough – to know us each by name.

Terry Waite was held hostage in Lebanon for nearly five years—one of the longest of that 1980s hostage crisis period. He was in solitary confinement for the whole five years, blindfolded, and alone. After he was released, he said, “For most of that time I didn’t even know where I was, but I knew that God knew where I was, and that was enough.”

The empty tomb of Easter means nothing without the cross. The cross means that God knows – God knows – your loss, your tears, your highest hopes, your deepest fears. And who you are.

___________________________________________

Notes:

Thanks to son-in-law Joel for telling me about the marvelous painting, "The Denial of Peter" (above), c. 1623, by Gerrit van Honthorst, which is in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

I tried to find an equally compelling painting of Mary and Jesus in the tomb garden. This anonymous early twentieth century illustration (top) doesn't quite do it. Mary Magdalene, although something of a woman of mystery, is very much her own person in the gospels. In John's account, just before Jesus says her name, she has given him a piece of her mind when she thinks he's "the gardener" who has taken Jesus' body away! You can get a sense of this by reading the whole account in John 20:1-18.

My dad was in St. Mary's (Mayo) for nine weeks. After the doctors had suggested to my uncle that he should prepare my mom for the end of Dad's life--they saved him! They gave us forty more years of Dad! I breathe a prayer of thanks for this every time I climb the stairs at St. Mary's entrance to make a pastoral visit.

HOW I WILL LOVE YOU

Our daughters, Beret and Anna, have become lovely women by the love of God and the gentle wisdom of their mother. February 17th is the anniversary of Anna's Arrival Day; March 22nd is Beret's Birthday. I wrote this many years ago for any parent preparing for the arrival of a child by birth or adoption. But, really, I wrote it for Beret and Anna.

HOW I WILL LOVE YOU

You will come through the miracle passage of birth

From somewhere in heaven to right here on earth –

Right here, where this family is waiting to start;

Right here – to these arms and this place in this heart.

Or maybe your journey will detour around

Till your own private angel-jet touches the ground,

And there I’ll be waiting to see who we’ll be,

And I’ll adopt you – and you’ll adopt me!

And how I will love you! When you are brand new!

When you are first finding out how to be you!

Of course you’ll be beautiful, handsome, and smart –

But that’s not the reason love grows in the heart.

You won’t have to earn it or prove it to me;

That’s just the way love is – love comes for free.

Free – but not easy – not every day;

Sometimes I won’t know just what I should say

When you are angry or tired or wild.

It’s then I will love you…

It’s then I will love you…

It’s then I will love you…

 Because you’re my child!

And every day you will grow just a bit,

And every day some more clothes will not fit.

All of that growing will take lots of food,

And of course it is my job to make sure it’s good!

And so we’ll have breakfasts and banquets and snacks,

And picnics with fortunate ants on our tracks.

But tables are more than just places to eat –

The family table is where you will meet…

…Uncles and aunties and grandmas and pas

And dozens of cousins who’ll love you because –  

Because you are family – because you are you,

And since they’re all family – you’ll love them too!

And how we will love you – as we watch you grow,

As you start to learn all of the things you will know.

And we’ll learn together! We’ll read lots of books;

You’ll soon know how all of the alphabet looks,

And how all those a’s  b’s  c’s and d’s sound.

Oh, how the words will go round and around!

Words in your eyes and words in your mouth,

Words flying east and west, words north and south.

Some words we’ll read in short stories and long,

Some words we’ll warble together – in song.

And how I will love you – as you sit in my lap

And we sing lullabies – till we both take a nap!

Then after our nap we will go out and play

Making up games for the rest of the day.

We’ll choo-choo with trains as we watch them go by,

We’ll stretch like the trees as we reach for the sky.

Some day, like the big kids, you’ll go off to school;

You’ll learn the latest grammatical rule.

Some day, but not yet. I’m glad that you’ll be

Still – for a while – right here with me.

And how I will love you when day turns to night,

And you hug your best blanket as we turn off the light.

Then I’ll sit by your bed and I’ll sing you to sleep,

Or I’ll try – ‘cause your plan will be that you’ll keep

Awake all night long and sleep all the next day

So the next night, again, you’ll be ready to play!

But finally you’ll fall asleep under a book;

I’ll turn at the door and I’ll sneak just a look.

You’ll be sweetly asleep, another day done,

And when you wake up you will be twenty-one!

I’ll think back and remember the first day you came,

And I’ll see that… you’re bigger! But, really, the same.

You’ll still be the one I loved right from the start –

All grown up! But always the child of my heart.  

And how I will love you …

I set out to write this as "How we will love you," but I wasn't smart enough to make the rhyme and the flow work that way.

Plus, I wanted it to speak for a single parent, too. But, for me, the "I' should be read to include both Caryl and me. Of course

Beret and Anna would agree.

(c) Richard Jorgensen

THE WOODWORKER, THE FARM BOY, THE COFFEEMAKER... AND THE BEAST

Building and maintaining and sharing a cabin with my sisters and their husbands (Barb & Phil and Betty & Jeff) in an isolated Black Hills creek valley has been, for Caryl and me, an experience of love and joy (and a bit o’ work) for twenty-three years. It’s not that we’ve never disagreed about what color to stain a wall or what kind of dish soap to use, but a certain openness and honesty in communication (and that love thing) makes it work. I have friends who have told me that they wouldn’t be able to do something like this in their family, which makes me feel all the more fortunate when I contemplate that this dream, which Caryl and I could probably not have realized on our own, has been reachable when shared among the six of us.

I’ve mused in earlier essays (here, and here) about this partnership and family experience. But in this post I share a memory of a particular vignette in our cabin-building odyssey—a memory that just now came to me as I was reaching into the refrigerator for some orange juice.

The exterior walls of custom-cut logs, and the roof of the cabin, were erected by Jorgensen Log Homes, the company owned by our brother, Bob (we love him, too); Jeff and Phil and I finished off most of the interior. At that time we were all living six hundred miles away, in Minnesota, where we were serving as pastors of Lutheran parishes. The finishing work was accomplished in a series of week-long study/work retreats, with a daily pattern of examining preaching texts or discussing theology in the morning (honest!), and working on the cabin in the afternoon and evening…and, usually, into the night. In these kinds of projects, we make a pretty good triumvirate: Jeff is a skilled woodworker with experience in home-building, Phil is an old farm boy who knows a lot about a lot of things, and I make a pretty good pot of coffee--and am fairly adept at learning the minor crafts to which Jeff introduces me. A typical workday would start with Jeff giving us our marching orders, including giving me a quick tutorial in my assignment (I am now, for example, learned in the ancient art of scribing: cutting a board-end to fit around an irregularly shaped log), and each of us bending to our particular task. (With the occasional break for that coffee I mentioned.) In this way, we made good progress and solved most problems. Until, that is, it came to installing a propane refrigerator.

In the early years, we had engaged in some earnest conversation and Whole-Earth-Catalog-research regarding keeping the cabin off the grid. Somewhere in those discussions, the idea of a propane-powered refrigerator came up. We researched that, too, and came upon a retired handyman in suburban Minneapolis who repaired and restored these appliances for sale. We called him, described our need, and arranged to pick up a refrigerator in preparation for our next westward work trip. Arriving at the handyman’s address, we were met by his wife, who sadly explained that her husband had died only a few days earlier. After receiving our sympathy, and with some hemming-and-hawing on our part, she invited us into the garage, which was a gallery of used propane refrigerators. Somewhat timorously, the widow pointed to one of the appliances and said, “I think it was that one.” We examined it to the best of our knowledge (there’s the rub!), paid the agreed upon price, and loaded the refrigerator into our trailer. This “loading” was the first of a number of times that the three of us lifted, pulled, pushed, man-handled, and cursed what amounted to the dead weight of a bull elephant into or out of our little trailer. (I don’t think this was the occasion on which, before driving off, we noticed that the trailer hitch was actually causing the front end of the car to elevate noticeably. Another story.)

We said our sympathetic farewells to the widow, and headed for the hills. Six hundred miles and ten hours later, we backed the trailer up to the steps (eight steps!) of the cabin porch, and proceeded to… (see “lifted, pulled, pushed…” etc., above). We hauled the beast up the steps, across the porch, heaved it up another small step into the front door, and rolled it across the floor into its assigned corner.

After our huffing and puffing had subsided, and our faces had returned to their normal color (and, maybe, a well-earned beer), we examined the ancient owner’s manual that we found inside the refrigerator. Jeff had piped in the propane supply in readiness, and he hooked it up. Guided by the yellowed manual, we turned knobs and tried various connections and controls. Nothing happened. We tried again. The woodworker and farm boy and coffeemaker had met our match. We were stumped.

After some head-scratching, my brother helped us to locate a local retired handyman (!) with considerable experience in propane refrigerators. Arriving at our remote cabin, he—a man of few words—proceeded to examine the unit from every angle, including on his knees. He straightened, rubbed his chin, eyed the hulking thing for a few more minutes, and broke the long silence with, “Yeah, we might be able to get ‘er goin’…, but then again... this just might kill you boys.”

We called the trash hauler that day. He and his burly associate bound the appliance to a freight dolly and wheeled it (surprisingly easily, I thought) down the steps and away.

Well, that’s a long way to go to get to what has become a bemusingly appreciated mantra among us. Every once in a while, as the three of us are rubbing our own chins and pondering how to get around some conundrum, I can’t help suggesting, “This just might kill you boys.”

______________________________________________________

Postscript: Later, upon further reflection, we determined that the poor widow had probably--completely innocently--directed us to a unit that her late husband had not even started on. Probably a blessing in disguise for us.

Our current (non-lethal) refrigerator.
A sensible Whirlpool.

GRANDMA OLIVE AND THE STRAWBERRY CIRCLE

I wish I were a poet. If I were, I could make something of this snippet that’s been running through my mind the last few days,

Grandpa, can I

Yes

Grandpa, will you

Yes

Grandpa, can we

Yes

Yes Yes Yes, my boy

Yes

That’s inspired by grandson Sam. A few days ago his almost-three-year-old sister, Violet, snuggled with her blanket in a chair and then said, “Grandpa, now I need a snack and my milky and my num-num” (pacifier—yes, yes, she’s being weaned). “Yes, princess,” I replied. Not a minute later she disensconced herself from her cozy throne and appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Grandpa, are you doing it?” “Yes, your majesty.” Of course it occurred to me that Violet’s parents would no doubt disapprove of both sides of that exchange. But I’m Grandpa.

As a parent, I was a slow learner in regard to grandparental rights, privileges, wisdom, and VALUE!, especially in regard to my mother-in-law, Olive Nasby. A few days before Beret (Sam and Violet’s mother) was born, Caryl told me that her mom was going to come and help out. “Gee,” I said, “I thought it would be nice to just be our own little family.” Beret was born; Olive came. After about ten minutes I was on my knees saying “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” (Of course now I understand that you moms might greet my quaint idea about doing it by ourselves with, “Easy for you to say, dad!”)

A year or so later we were visiting Caryl’s parents at their farm. Beret, now a toddler, was sitting in her highchair in Olive’s homey kitchen, and I had given her a big juicy strawberry, which sat, untouched, in the middle of the highchair tray. “Put a little sugar on it,” advised Olive. “No,” I said (I think my nose might have even raised itself a bit into the air), “no, we’re raising Beret without added sugar.” (For most of our daughters’ early childhoods I would sneak around the corner to put the tablespoon+ of sugar on my Cheerios—which I had grown up with—while they ate theirs sugar-free.). “Come on, “ repeated my mother-in-law, “try it with a little sugar.” “No thanks, “ I said. The conversation—and our attention—turned elsewhere. A few minutes later I noticed that the strawberry was gone. Where it had stood on the tray there was now only a small circle of sugar. (And a sweet strawberry blush circled Beret's mouth.) At that point I gave in completely to my mother-in-law.

And she treated me like a king. Absolutely every time we visited, I would open the refrigerator and there would be a brand new unopened pint of half-and-half, because she knew I liked it on my cereal. (I know there’s a kind of sugar-and-cream theme going on here, but we’re talking about the daughter and grandson of Norwegian immigrants.

Olive Nelson Nasby
Would you tangle with this woman?

)* And Beret's sister, Anna (who came along later), reminds me that it was for me--and not necessarily for them--that Grandma always had freshly made donuts ready at our arrival.

Olive is also the person who taught me not to fear death. But that’s another story for another time.

She is remembered in love. She rests in peace. Try a little sugar.

_____________________________________________________________

*I am aware of important recent reports about the dangers of too much sugar; Caryl and I have changed our habits somewhat, and try to help our grandkids with theirs. But this isn't a story about nutrition. (Although I should point out that the same studies have restored  to some degree the reputation of cream!)