Mother Mary. A Mother’s Day Reflection

She pondered these things in her heart.

Mothers do that quite often.

She kept all these things.

My mother did too.

 

An angel told Mary.

The power of the Highest will.

An overshadowing of foreshadows.

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”

 

All mothers are infused with possibilities.

They lay down their self dreams

and rest folded hands upon

their distended bellies.

 

Mary carried wonder

full term and delivered hope.

There was blood and water and child.

All mothers hold pasty skin to chest with awe.

 

My mother held each of us close for a moment.

A snip of the umbilical and the separation

began a journey of contemplation.

What will? What if? Life.

 

Mary’s path was set.

From empty womb to empty tomb

the realities of motherhood were multiplied.

The gestation in her heart left stretch marks of spirit.

 

Near the end Mary drank of the cup no mother should.

She wept just like Jesus and red drops fell

as sweat on her brow as she prayed.

Blood fell on her and for her.

 

No mother should lose a child.

My mother was ten for ten when she died.

She was spared Mary’s anguish under a broken sky.

Jesus spoke living words. “Woman, behold you son! Behold your mother.”

 

Even in death he loved her so and knew hers was an acquainted grief.

I wonder if Mary was one who anointed his body.

Those things she held in her heart poured

on and massaged in his skin.

 

Then came the first Mother’s Day.

Sunday he was birthed again to Mary’s arms.

The Rose of Sharon was given from her loving Father.

She then held him close and smelled the fragrance of redemption.

The Way I See Sometimes. It Ain’t Pretty.

I misplaced my rose colored glasses.

The world is in a hand basket on its way somewhere.

The world is all that it is cracked up to be.

Cracks, cracks, cracks, and the humans are racing

to tape and mud and sand and prime.

 

He’s got the whole world in his hands

and I wonder if it is getting a little too heavy.

God so loved that an only Son came

to carry the weight on his shoulders.

It broke both of their backs along with their hearts.

 

At times all I can see is from Solomon’s perspective.

Oh, I am not wise. I am not even that smart.

If you will please open your Bible to the book of Ecclesiastes (Insert preacher voice)

you will see it is not a song of Solomon.

It almost sounds like a solemn dirge though.

 

I think maybe Solomon, for a moment misplaced his glasses too.

All that talk about vanity and vexation.

“To everything there is a season,

a time for every purpose under heaven.”

It is under heaven alright, because the list gets heavy.

 

Death isn’t rosy.

Pluck is a take away.

Thou shall not kill.

We all have our breakdowns.

Even Jesus wept.

Mourn.

Casting stones.

No hugs.

Loss.

Throwing away.

Tearing, rending.

Shhhh.

Hate? Really?

War. What is it good for?

 

Okay, okay, those are only the dark seasons.

Did you forget that my Elton John rose colored specks is missing?

Maybe I should have my U.V. shades on anyway under all this sun;

The kind people wear to funerals dressed like men in black.

 

If all I see is reactive attachment why would I want a clear view, really.

If all I observe is moral breakdown and despair, reserve me a padded room.

If all I blankly stare at is dis-ease and patients while I put a compress on compassion, please forgive me.

If all I look upon are sacred hearts broken beneath a cross, go hug your mother while you can.

 

It’s all under the sun and it is vexing.

Faith, hope, and love are naked without sunscreen.

Without Son glasses I squint and see men walking about like trees.