Driving home the other day, I spotted a gorgeous display of colorful tulips which had been painstakingly planted to spell the word LOVE. ♥️ What an amazing and unexpected gift to the hundreds of people driving by each day!! It seems MOST appropriate that this blooming proclamation appears during the week when we are celebrating those people who have shared wonderful mothering influences in our lives — giving that nourishing and nurturing love which feeds our souls. We give thanks for them all! — acknowledging that we wouldn’t be the people we turned out to be if it hadn’t been for their special brand of LOVE.
For some of us, this “mothering” love has come from sources other than a biological mom... a teacher, grandparent, father, mentor, stepparent, pastor, friend... a “special someone” who showered deep unconditional acceptance and appreciation of our basic being, who truly believed — and let us know — that we were most EXTRAORDINARY!!
In 1990’s a new hymn, often used on Mother’s Day, appeared in hymnals; its text was written by Thomas Troeger. Ordained in both the Presbyterian and Episcopalian traditions, he has pastored churches, written some 20 books and nearly 400 hymn texts and taught in seminaries — the last of which was YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL right down the road . “I work out my theology in hymnody” he says, and “over time, advances in knowledge help me speak of God in ways I had not before.” The hymn? GOD MADE FROM ONE BLOOD ALL THE FAMILIES OF EARTH. Click here to listen to vs. 1, 3 and 4 (which includes the text of those verses) then read verses 2 and 5 as follows:
“We turn to you, God, with our thanks and our tears for all of the families we’ve known through the years, the intimate networks on whom we depend of parent and partner and roommate and friend. Then widen that wisdom and grace to include the races and viewpoints our families exclude till peace in each home bears and nurtures the bud of peace shared by all you have made from one blood.”
As we give thanks this weekend for all who have “mothered” us, let us remember that each of US has the potential to share that same “mothering” type of love with people in our lives too!