The nurturing origins of mothers day

Mother's Day is one of those celebrations that evokes a variety of emotions or attitudes towards it. Here at Westwood in a congregation that welcomes examining the status quo and for looking past face value… Mother's Day is no different.

Today, we are going to hear about some of the better known origins of mother’s day, and some not so well known. First, it is important to mention one of the important nuggets that is at the root of the annual Mother's Day celebration....

Mothers Day, for many people, is a formal acknowledgement of the valuable contributions to our lives received by those that have mothered us or who have mothered others.

I think that is a truth that most of us here can acknowledge and celebrate. Celebrations, validation and ritual are an important glue that can hold community together.

However, for some people, the commercial aspects of Mother's Day can seem more than a bit paradoxical from its original intent. Anna Jarvis conceived mother's day as a tribute to her mother and all mothers. She campaigned to preserve mother’s day as a simple holiday that sentiment not profit. However, her original idea morphed into what is now the biggest money-making event of the year for florists, hallmark, brunches at restaurants and long distance phone companies.

That paradox is one that I think most of us can easily navigate and take from it what we wish. We can choose not to celebrate the commercialized version of mother’s day, or relish the thought of being pampered or pampering without making too big of a deal about the monetary aspects of the day.

On a personal level, our community does not often acknowledge that Mother’s Day can be difficult for many among us who don’t fit the pattern of families of loving mothers and children, happily connected, able to give and receive affection.

These may include children whose mothers are no longer living and mothers whose children are no longer living.

Those whose mothers were, or are, anything but gentle and loving and supportive.

Those who wish they were mothers and those who wish they were not.

Those who never knew their mothers and those who have more than one mother. Foster mums and step mums or dads raising kids on their own. Let each of us acknowledge that for some of us here today, Mother's Day brings mixed emotions.

Mother’s Day also was also created by Unitarian Universalist Julia Ward Howe as an occasion for mothers to unite together with the goal of preventing war which would take the lives of their children and of the children of women in all lands. Howe’s vision was a Mother’s Day of Peace, honouring peace, motherhood and womanhood. It was about finding an antidote for the depersonalization of war. It was about remembering that on both sides of a war, an enemy is someone's child, parent or beloved. An enemy is someone who is loved, someone that will be missed deeply if war takes their lives. Howe's first Mother's Day began on June 2, 1870. It was observed in 18 American cities in 1872. Boston continued to observe it for 10 years after that and other cities for as long as 30 more years. That Mother’s Day celebration is certainly not as well known, but it is very relevant today.

But Mother's Day has roots reaching back further. During the sixteenth century, in Britain, people returned to their "mother church" for a service to be held on the fourth Sunday of Lent. This was either a large local church, or more often the nearest Cathedral. Anyone who did this was commonly said to have gone 'a-mothering'. Which later became known as Mothering Sunday. It was often the only time that whole families could gather together if prevented by conflicting working hours. On that day, apprentices, household servants, and others whose work kept them from home for most of the year were given the day off to visit their home church. It was quite common in those days for children to leave home for work once they were ten years old. As they walked along the country lanes, children would pick wild flowers or violets to take to church or give to their mother as a small gift.

The Anglician Church of England still celebrates mothering sunday, although the westernized Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May has overshadowed the previous tradition. Another tradition associated with Mothering Sunday is the practice of 'church clipping'. This is where the congregation forms a ring around their church building and, holding hands, embrace it as an expression of love. Church clipping sounds like a wonderful affirming ritual, and may have been a way that pagan rituals were incorporated into the christian churches.

There are more precursors to Mother’s Day. The ancient Greeks and Romans had spring festivals honoring mother goddesses, Rhea and Cybele. In the British Isles and Celtic Europe a spring festival honored the goddess Brigid who, later became known as St. Brigid.

Reverend Lisa Doege from the First Unitarian Church summarizes the roots of mother's day this way:

What these various Mother’s Days have in common, it seems to me, is reverence for life. From Anna Jarvis’ desire to honor the women who give us life, to Julia Ward Howe’s dream of saving generations from war death to Mothering Sunday and the Greek and Roman and British/Celtic spring renewal celebrations of Rhea and Cybele and Brigid.

Each of these festivals is about honoring the source of life and protecting the life that springs from the source.

Lisa directs us to appreciate how often the universalizing nature of motherhood appears in texts from many sources.

Charlotte Gray wrote: Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate.

The thread that ties all of this together seems to be that mother's day is a day for us all to embrace what Julia Ward Howe thought mothers clearly understood - the sanctity of life, the inherent worth and dignity of each individual, and the interdependent web of which we are a part.

Jakalin MacGregor

Bulb Ritual/Meditation: Today, we are going to ask the people here to come up and help us to place a flower bulb into a small pot filled with earth ready to take home and plant in your own gardens. Anyone who wishes may participate in this ritual. Children bring your parents with you. We will leave the pots on the stage for the rest of the service and then people can take one home with them at the end of the service. What we can learn from tending a garden is that each and every one of us is seed-filled. No matter how young or old we may be, no matter what our abilities or disabilities, we have a multitude of seeds of possibilities within us. The bulbs we plant today are symbolic of the seeds within us that have been planted by our parents and ancestors. We can't change them. But we can nurture them. [people come up and plant while Jacqueline plays music] Let us gently place these bulbs into the earth Later, our job will be to water and weed these bulbs, to watch and wait, nurturing the young flower into maturity. Today at the end of this service we ask you to take home a bulb as a symbol of a gift, a possibility, a dream that you harbor within you at this moment. Let your bulb represent your commitment to nurture that dream and bring it to life. Let your bulb represent your nurturing relationship with mother earth.

Closing Words:

Hold on ... by Nancy Woods
Hold on to what is good
Even if it is
A handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe
Even if it is a tree
Which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do
Even if it is
A long way from here.
Hold on to my hand
Even when I have gone away from you.

Hold on to each other
And to faith, and hope, and love.
Even just these things
Will see you through.

We believe that everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves. The fundamental tools for doing this are your own life experience, your reflection upon it, your intuitive understanding and the promptings of your own conscience.

added May 14, 2007.