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Mother's Day is coming. But before it does, let's take a sideways glance of affection at all those "minor players" - the women who in small but significant ways have shaped us spiritually. Lots of folks praise the known women of the world -- what I hope we can do here together is to claim honors for the women who inspired us as we went along our life's journey...the mothers-of-our-souls.
Who helped you see yourself as part of something more?
Who helped you see the world in special ways?
Who helped shaped your ethics, your world view?
What ordinary women inspired your passion for justice?
We spend a lot of time holding up women who are well-known. Today I want us to celebrate the everyday saints -- to sing the praises of the unsung.
Here is my list -- please add yours and we can all hold up these women together.
Leona - my best friend's mom who was like my 2nd mom. She made me read the biography of Margaret Sanger (abortion advocate) when I was 14, and she taught me to ride a 2-wheeler bike. Leona was the most fearless woman I had met up to that point. I loved her a lot.
Barbara - my high school English teacher who stayed around to be my friend. She took in a fellow high school student who had alcoholic parents, and he became a part of her family. Her farm house was alwys chock full of the high school's more Bohemian students -- either reading poetry or playing word games. We all felt accepted and understood there. She died 2 weeks after my own Mom. I was wordless with grief.
Anna - my German teacher who had always wanted to be a nun, but stayed out of the convent to care for her ailing father and mother. In poignant ways she consciously taught me to seize the day.
Jesse - a Native American/Hispanic woman who worked as a cook in the restaurant where I waitressed for one year in college.She was a fierce advocate of family, and family was anyone she loved. I was lucky enough to be part of her brood. I still have the plastic Virgin Mary statue that she gave me when I needed to go to the hospital for surgery 30 years ago. She gave more than she could all the time, and always had some left over. She was a walking lesson in abundant love.
MaryJo -- who is now fighting her 4th recurrence of lymph/breast cancer. She keeps doing the meds and praying her way through it all. She owns her pain, owns her fear and keeps on keeping on. For those of you who pray, please pray for her.
Jania - my confirmation godmother -- a little sparrow of a woman who just plain loved me without exception. She loved with such ease, such graceful fluidity. It was impossible to imagine her as anything but holy in the quietest of ways, something she would vigorously deny.
I think it matters to hold up all our spiritual mothers (whether they are older or younger than we) for praise and thanks and to give them public honors for the good they have done. There are crowds of such women in our world, millions of everyday heroines who make our lives better. Maybe they are not Marie Curie or Sojourner Truth or Mother Teresa or any other woman we can all name. But they matter with a collective force of goodness that makes the planet habitable and kind and wise and compassionate.
Related Blogs from a slightly different angle:
Becoming tells a fun tale of a spiritual lesson learned from her 6 year old daughter.
Stacy got a surprising lesson of the spirit via an email from a perfect stranger, a mother of four children.
Julie at Time Is a Moment learns a big life lesson only three words long to carry forward from a 2 and a half year old.
