The Sorrowful Mother

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Blessed Mother, faith, grace, Hurricane Harvey, Mary, mother, mourning, Our Lady of Sorrows, pain, Syrian refugees, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust

Today our Church remembers Mary under the title of “Our Lady of Sorrows.” There are many feasts in our Church calendar honoring Mary but, this year especially, I find this one particularly poignant as images arise of present-day mothers. I see Syrian refugee mothers cradling their hungry and frightened toddlers, then a mother reaching out of a helicopter to fetch her child from the basket that has saved her little one as it saved her from the swirling waters of Hurricane Harvey, then a young mother at the side of her ten-year old child’s hospital bed, then a would-be mother mourning her miscarriage…

It is no wonder that mothers the world over (like my own) are known to have deep devotion to the Blessed Mother, herself unwed and a frightened teenager at the start, but one who trusted God’s grace to sustain her. In her faith she became strong enough to weather all the storms of motherhood, even to seeing her son executed in a horrible death. So many women can look to Mary to understand the pain of the various circumstances of their motherly lives.

Today I will pray for mothers young and old, happy and sad, fulfilled and unfulfilled, struggling or joyous (or both!) and ask God’s blessing on all who take on this role that they may find solace in the company of women and encouragement in the timeless witness of Mary, mother to all.

Troubled Times

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9/11, care, end of the world, evil, good, grief, hope, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, love, new beginning, pray, psalm 62, refuge, response, safety, Sept. 11, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There are moments – days – when I sit not knowing what to say here. The words nine and eleven, when taken together, can conjure up only one thing for most, if not all, people in the United States. We were shaken to our core in 2001 with images of planes crashing into buildings and those buildings crumbling like structures in a bad movie. Messages of love on cell phones and lines of people waiting to give blood to the wounded showed us the other side of the tragedy. Remembrance of the outpouring of care for those most affected has helped assuage the grief of those days following the 9/11 attacks but it is like other days in our history that have left indelible scars in our hearts.

As I write this, Hurricane Irma is barreling through the state of Florida, continuing a path of destruction that has already devastated Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Islands. Following on unbelievable scenes of flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and what is predicted for storms to come, people wonder if we are witnessing the end of the world as we have known it.

If asked, I would answer that perhaps this is the case and in the way that I perceive it, an end would be a good thing if it portends a new beginning founded on the kind of behaviors that are not the cause of but rather the response to hatred/prejudice and disaster. Think of those images of first responders on 9/11 or the reports this week of people like the man in Houston that opened his furniture store to 600 people as a refuge from the storm, or the donations that are pouring in from everywhere…In a new order, I would hope for the scales of good and evil tipped toward the good, such that all people would see the benefit and embrace the future in love.

Pollyanna, you call me? Perhaps, but this hope is founded in possibility. It must be believed to be achieved. Until such time as all people see the value of love as a guide for life, I will pray and hope and try to do my part to better the world. I am bolstered in my faith by the testimony of people who have come through disaster with their faith intact or stronger and by the words of Psalm 62 this morning, which calls for patient but constant effort toward peace of heart in the following words:

Alone my soul awaits you in the silence, Lord, for you alone are my whole hope and prayer. You only are my saving rock, a stronghold safe, unshaken sure, my safety, honor and my refuge firm. (vs. 6-8)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stepping Up

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, damage, distress, generosity, help, heroes, heroic efforts, Hurricane Harvey, light, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unexpected heaven

Last night as I checked into the news of the day and saw the devastation that took the entire half-hour of the NBC Nightly News, I knew I ought to focus my words this morning on the terrible event that has been Hurricane Harvey. Ironically, Alan Cohen provided the words – from his book published in 1996! (Finding that publication date answered my question of why his entry for today in A Deep Breath of Life didn’t include the 9/11 attacks.) In his mention of  Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii in 1992, the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 and even the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival in 1969 (because of the unexpected “invasion” of 500,000 people overnight in this small town), Cohen does not focus on the damage and distress but rather on the heroic efforts of so many people during and after those events. While not diminishing the unexpected devastation of people’s lives, he says the following:

Many heroes who would otherwise have remained anonymous came to the fore…No event is entirely negative. Sometimes a hell can set the stage for an unexpected heaven.

My presumption is that we will see (or have already seen) the same kind of outpouring of generosity this week. I add my intention to Cohen’s today as he prays, Show me how to find the light in the darkness. Help me be a light to others. May it be so with us.