Jesus tells disciples, “An Advocate is to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows this Spirit. But you know this Spirit, because the Spirit remains with you, and will be in you.”
Wisdom guides like Jesus are free. They are therefore subversive. They counsel no obedience to masters, no constraints on our energy, no harshness in our actions. Wisdom guides share a Spirit. They live in communion with others, independent from obedience to any master. They live true to love, free from attachment to any hostility. They live flowing with creativity, healing any harshness. A Spirit true to communion, free to love, and living creatively as a healer is a Mother’s Spirit. Mothers live in communion with their body that is the body of another, beautiful and growing. A Mother knows her beautiful Spirit and she knows the beautiful Spirit of another. A Mother’s Spirit extends beyond studies in theology and lives as empowered wisdom. A Mother lives in love with life and with one other person, growing them into the whole of themselves. She is vulnerable, willing to play with a life that will forever change her. Mothers live in the miracle, beauty, and artistry of creating. A delicacy about, or perhaps a disrespect for or a discrimination against women, and their birthing children, has construed the tale of a stork. An external creature drops off a baby who is a stranger to an awaiting woman. What is lost when a tale is told of a stork? A woman powerfully mothering a baby for nine months and powerfully mothering a baby for the world. A mother loving a baby for nine months and powerfully loving a baby to love others. A woman creating a baby and empowering a baby to be creative for the world. We do not need Spiritual Masters. We need Spiritual Mothers. A Mother’s Spirit reaches out as the Spirit that can guide our common lives. A Spirit that opens us to be changed by another vulnerable human being, with whom we are in communion, in love, in creative flow.
“Who sat and watched my infant head When sleeping on my cradle bed, And tears of sweet affection shed? My Mother. When pain and sickness made me cry, Who gazed upon my heavy eye, And wept for fear that I should die? My Mother. Who taught my infant lips to pray… and walk in wisdom’s pleasant way? My Mother… When thou art feeble, old and grey, My healthy arm shall be thy stay, And I will soothe thy pains away, My Mother.” (My Mother – Ann Taylor)
Prayer: Mother Spirit, birth us anew.
Question: Who can I thank for giving me a Mother’s Spirit?
May 14, 2023 Gospel John 14:15-21 Sixth Sunday of Easter