God our Mother
-
Allison Woodard (28/9/2017)
To be a mother is to suffer;
to travail in the dark,
stretched and torn,
exposed in half-naked humiliation,
subjected to indignities
for the sake of new life.
To be a mother is to say,
“This
is my body broken for you,”
And, in the next instant, in response to
the created’s primal hunger,
“This
is my body, take and eat.”
To be a mother is to self-empty,
to neither slumber nor sleep,
so attuned You are to cries in the night –
Offering the comfort of Yourself,
and assurances of “I’m here.”
To be a Mother is to weep
over the fighting and exclusions and wounds
your children inflict on one another;
To long for reconciliation and brotherly
love
and – when all is said and done –
to gather all parties, the offender and the
offended,
into the folds of your embrace
and to whisper in their ears
that they are Beloved.
To be a mother is to be vulnerable –
to be misunderstood,
railed against,
blamed
for the heartaches of the bewildered
children
who don’t know where else to cast
the angst they feel
over their own existence
in this perplexing universe.
To be a mother is to hoist onto your hips
those on whom your image is imprinted,
bearing the burden of their weight,
rejoicing in returned affection,
delighting in their wonder,
bleeding in the presence of their pain.
To be a mother is to be accused of
sentimentality one moment,
and injustice the next.
To be the receiver of endless demands,
absorber of perpetual complaints,
reckoner of bottomless needs.
To be a mother is to be an artist;
a keeper of memories past,
weaver of stories untold,
visionary of lives looming ahead.
To be a mother is to be the first voice
listened to,
and the first disregarded;
to be a Mender of broken creations,
and Comforter of the distraught children
whose hands wrought them.
To be a mother is to be a Touchstone
and the Source,
Bestower of names
Influencer of identities;
Life giver,
Life shaper,
Empath,
Healer
and
Original Love.
