minefield

 

Here in the UK, tomorrow is Mothers’ Day (tied, perhaps unhelpfully, to the fourth Sunday of Lent, which, known as Mothering Sunday, had a pre-existing history of honouring the Church as the Mother who nurtured our faith).

Mothers’ Day is difficult for many people for a wide range of reasons and so becomes a minefield to navigate. But the thing about minefields is, they need clearing, not avoiding. Clearing minefields is, of course, a skilled task, and not one best done with the whole village present. Nonetheless, it serves the whole village to undertake such work, better than teaching generations to keep their distance.

There is a reason why psychiatrists ask their clients to tell them about their mother. Everyone had a mother, even if you never knew her, and everyone has baggage relating to their mother. Even those who have a good relationship with their mother. (And perhaps none more so than those who claim that their mother is their best friend.)

Everyone has things for which they need to forgive their mother; and things for which they need to forgive themselves in relation to their mother.

Everyone.

Learning to diffuse the improvised explosive devices that lie buried in our lives, or strapped around our chests, is patient but necessary work.

The same, of course, is true in relation to the Church, for those whose faith has been both shaped and misshaped by their experience of that Mother community.

Spare a thought for those who will face up to Mothering Sunday / Mothers’ Day tomorrow (on an hour's less sleep, as the clocks go forward tonight in the ironically named British Summer Time).