One of the most memorable Mother’s Day cards I’ve ever seen was one that my brother Steve gave to my mother, when he was in his early teens. The card had a beautiful rose on the outside, and on the inside was printed these words, “You’ve been like a mother to me”. We all laughed, especially my mother, saying, “well that’s good to know Steven, because I AM your mother”.. It’s easy to retell this story as an example of the confused thinking of a young teenager, but I think that Steve was on to something profound..
You’ve been like a mother to me. In other words, you’ve made space and time for me, you carry me in your heart, and you have never abandoned me. I believe in you. I trust in your love.
Mother’s Day is complicated for so many reasons. We’ve all had, and have, such uniquely different experiences of our own mothers. And, women have all had such uniquely different experiences of being a mother, or not being a mother. Times have changed so much with respect to the roles of women, and also with respect to the understanding of what it means to “be fruitful and multiply”. Mother’s Day has become so commercialized. And we lose sight of the amazing, life changing processes in nature that bring forth new life. Processes that so many of the world’s religions draw upon as a metaphor when trying to describe the experience of God creating new life within all of us.
So this Sunday we will honor “You’ve Been Like a Mother to Me” Day. We will seek to honor the life giving love that we’ve all experienced, and God’s creative loving energies working within all of us.
Ee cummings writes a poem about this love, which I interpret as God’s love poem to each one of us:
Ee cummings.. [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/i-carry-your-heart-with-me-by-ee-cummings
When the alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19:33-34
It’s Monday, Earth Day, and it’s a glorious spring afternoon. I am sitting in the Garden of Eden which exists in my back yard; as the warm sun kisses my shoulders through the shade of graceful redwood and bay trees, and my senses are filled with the fragrance of roses and trees.
Like many of you this week, I watched along with the world as the footage of flames enveloping the Cathedral of Notre Dame went viral over the internet. At first, the images of the grand spire collapsing echoed memories of 9/11. I couldn’t help but ask why? Why did this happen to this Cathedral, that so embodies the confluence of beauty, majesty, faith, art, history, and human expression? Why, on the eve of Holy week? Was it a sign? 
is the outpouring of support for the millions of black and brown people living as refugees throughout the world? And for the millions who are being held in detention centers and prisons in this country? And right here in Oakland, for the thousands living in tents on the streets of our cities, here, in one of the wealthiest areas in the world. 
Would there be such an outpouring of sadness, if we were remembering a young man of color, in an orange jumpsuit, arrested for being an insurrectionist, a disturber of the peace? Whose church was not a building, but the people whom he loved and healed and to whom he brought hope: the sick, the poor, the women and children, the people of color, the outcasts, and those in prison. A man who’s church was the ecclesia, the people, who gathered to be inspired by the stories of the prophets. Who was executed on death row, by the military, industrial, superpower of his time?
What do we do, in the face of such unanswerable questions? We remember him. We join together, and stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers, out in the streets, near the prisons, and in the homeless encampments to pray, sing and support one another through the power of these Spirit inspired stories, to rebuild our lives and our world, bringing good news for all people. It’s what humans do, and have always done. It’s called the ecclesia, the gathered community of faith, the church. 
Saturday May 4 10 AM – 3PM
St. Mary’s Center
This Sunday we enter the sacred time of Holy Week, beginning with Palm/Passion Sunday, set to Gabriel Faure’s Requiem, and a children’s drama of the Palm Procession! The story challenges us to choose what to hold onto and what to let go.