Many countries will recognize Mothers' Day this coming Sunday (in the UK Mothering Sunday is in March).
A friend wrote a poem/prayer and published it in the pocket poets series,
In Prayer and Protest (Pocket Poets #8). It offers words for celebration of mothering, and words for lament. It offers a powerful alternative narrative to the sentimentalism of Mothers' Day. When Mothers' Day is treated like a Hallmark greeting card, it can sometimes compound grief for many, when pain and loss and grief are not recognized as part of reflections on mothering. Let us seek a certain honesty in the complexity of relationships and place lament alongside celebration.
Sarah's words below could be tailored to particular places and situations with additional words after the lament words, and before the summary line, 'we lament, seek to forgive and be forgiven' (which could be spoken together as a responsive phrase if used in worship).
For instance, I'm mindful of the 214 girls rescued by the Nigerian army this week from terror group Boko
Haram (now Iswap) who are "visibly pregnant", spreading fears they had been
raped by the militants. The news came after
reports emerged that
women and girls kidnapped by the insurgents were routinely raped and
forced to marry their abductors. As a result of the sexual violence,
some of them are now pregnant.
I'm mindful of the
10 year old in Paraguay, impregnated by her step-father and now half way through her pregnancy, and expected to carry it to full term.
I'm mindful of the women and their children who are experiencing domestic and family violence and forced to flee, many enduring the prospect of ongoing homelessness.
I'm mindful of women like the young mother
Sai in Thailand who struggle to make ends meet and go to the city to make money to help their families, only to be lured into the sex industry.
I'm mindful of young couples who want to have a baby but grieving that it is harder to conceive than they ever imagined. And those women who never had a child, but longed to be a mother.
I'm mindful of the children who are grossly neglected by one or both parents, like little
Chloe Valentine in my own city, who died as a result of injuries she sustained due to the negligence of those who were meant to care for her.
I'm mindful of the women who live in places where there is no access to emergency services
for the delivery of babies, and who endure long labours resulting in
horrific internal injuries including damage to the bladder and rectum, so they
leak constantly, and are shunned by others, pushed to the margins and
considered a curse. (And thankful for medical intervention for women
with fistula by hospitals and medical centres such as
Addis Ababa Hospital in Ethiopia).
I'm mindful of people like WBC/WBA welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather who has had at least
seven assaults against 5 women, including 2 women who are mothers of his children,
that resulted in arrest or citations in addition to other
episodes in which the police were called but no charges filed. He is
high profile, and allegations are largely brushed aside. Yet violence against women is a growing problem more generally, and
continues to be largely ignored and uncontested in the wider community and often unreported
to police. Domestic violence should raise immense concern and alarm in our communities. (Last night in my home city of Adelaide, the Coalition of
Women's Domestic Violence Services held a candlelight
vigil, standing in solidarity and saying no to violence, and remembering
those who have died as a result of domestic violence, as
well as their loved ones).
 |
| Coalition of Women's Domestic Violence Services candlelight vigil, Adelaide |
If
they are among the five percent of women worldwide who will face
obstructed labour, they will be in agonising labour for days and days.
They almost always lose their baby and suffer horrific internal
damage – sometimes the bladder is completely destroyed, sometimes the
rectum is also damaged. They leak constantly and are pushed to the edge
of their society, too filthy to be part of village life and considered a
curse.
- See more at: http://hamlin.org.au/#sthash.IqMFPjLi.dpuf
If
they are among the five percent of women worldwide who will face
obstructed labour, they will be in agonising labour for days and days.
They almost always lose their baby and suffer horrific internal
damage – sometimes the bladder is completely destroyed, sometimes the
rectum is also damaged. They leak constantly and are pushed to the edge
of their society, too filthy to be part of village life and considered a
curse.
- See more at: http://hamlin.org.au/#sthash.IqMFPjLi.dpuf
If
they are among the five percent of women worldwide who will face
obstructed labour, they will be in agonising labour for days and days.
They almost always lose their baby and suffer horrific internal
damage – sometimes the bladder is completely destroyed, sometimes the
rectum is also damaged. They leak constantly and are pushed to the edge
of their society, too filthy to be part of village life and considered a
curse.
- See more at: http://hamlin.org.au/#sthash.IqMFPjLi.dpuf
I'm mindful of the Australian Aboriginal mothers whose children were taken from them ('
The Stolen Generations'), some of whom ended up in Colebrook Home in Adelaide, where a mission was run from 1942-1972. The photo below is a sculpture in the Colebrook Reconciliation Park that now stands where Colebrook home once was, with a grieving mother - frozen in time - waiting for her children to return. It is so touching that visitors often leave flowers in her empty arms. So appropriate on Mothers Day.
 |
| Colebrook Reconciliation Park, Adelaide |
There are many more examples.....
Let us celebrate well the life-giving nature of mothering when we see it and experience it, but let us also offer lament alongside when we see what is life-denying and calling for sorrow, and action, so that our words speak honestly to many people who are hurting on Mothers' Day, and broaden the scope of our own loving kindness to others.
Celebration and Lament for mothers’ day by Sarah Agnew
(please acknowledge Sarah if this is used in print, visual or spoken versions)
As a community, we take time to pause and
give thanks for the gift of mothers.
Shining a light on the gift, shadows fall,
and we acknowledge the shadows, too.
We celebrate and give thanks, each of us,
for our mother. The woman who carried us in her womb, gave birth to us, brought
us into life.
We lament, each of us, separation from our
mother at different times, through conflict, distance of place, death.
We lament,
seek to forgive and be forgiven.
We celebrate and give thanks, each of us,
for those who have been as mothers to us; our aunts and pseudo-aunts, big
sisters, friends, mentors and teachers. The women who have nurtured, taught,
encouraged, shaped us with love.
We lament, each of us, the women who have
caused us pain, who have abandoned or neglected us, mistakenly or intentionally
caused us harm. We lament the hurt we
have caused to women, our friends, colleagues, neighbours, sisters, aunts and
mothers.
We lament, seek to forgive and be forgiven.
We celebrate and give thanks, together, for
the women in our communities. That women and men are different invites us into
partnership, invites us to share the burdens and the joys of life. For the many
strengths of women, their gifts of peace-making, nurture, education,
entrepreneurship, healing, wisdom, creativity, endurance, collaboration,
physicality – and so much more, we are grateful.
We lament, together, that women are still
discounted because they are women, in our culture and in others. That the
difference between women and men is seen as threatening, a power struggle, a
competition or a hierarchy, is not, we know, your dream for us.
We lament, seek
to forgive and be forgiven.
We celebrate, those of us who are mothers
and grandmothers, the joy and privilege it is to collaborate with you in the
creation of life. We give thanks for our children, their uniqueness, the
delight we find in watching and helping them grow.
We lament, those of us who are not mothers
and want to be, or who are mothers of children who have died.
We lament, and
have no words for our grief.
We celebrate, we give thanks, for you, our
mothering God, whose wings enfold us like those of a mother hen, who gives
birth to all that lives, who loves fiercely, protectively, and with great
delight. We celebrate what we know of you as like a mother.
We lament our turning from you and causing
you pain, our rejection of your gifts of life and love in so many ways. We seek
your forgiveness again and again.
Again and again, God welcomes us home, as a
mother welcomes her children.
Again and again, God celebrates us, God’s
children, and delights in watching and helping us grow.
Come, now, under the wings of God; come,
now, into the warmth of Love.
You are forgiven. You are loved. Precious
child of your Mothering God. 
