Never underestimate the power of spit

On the way to work I heard a woman caller to a radio station  respond to the question, “What have your children taught you?” She shared the story of her two daughters, one 4 months and one 19 months old. When the younger one was crying, the older one tried to comfort her by calling out her name and making cooing noises. When that didn’t work she went to the crib, took the pacifier out of her own mouth and plopped it into the mouth of her baby sister.

 The mom said she learned that sometimes words are not enough when it comes to comforting someone. Sometimes it required a personal touch, real presence.

 The radio announcer said the story reminded him of mother’s spit, a reference most moms would recognize immediately. Whether I was a toddler, teen or know-it-all mother of my own children, my mom wouldn’t hesitate to use one of the chief weapons in a mom’s arsenal of kid care – spit. And though I grimaced and squirmed and pulled away each time, I relied on the same tool myself as a mom of often dirty, scratched, bleeding or bitten sons.

 Mom’s spit is a healing, cleansing balm, intended as a course of care, contrary to the insulting practice of spitting on someone.

 Spit works. Jesus knew it, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he learned it from his mother, Mary. So when two blind men, and a third with a speech impediment, need healing, Jesus uses divine spit to release the men from their disabilities – a personal, intimate touch to be sure.

 Theologians are likely to interpret the story with more exacting attention to doctrine and prevailing customs of Jesus’ time, but for me, it’s enough to remember the miracle of spit – and the power of love made known through a mother’s caring, albeit sloppy, touch.

True strength comes from surrender to the Word of God

Difficult times in life often encourage us to wonder how other people do it. How do they navigate the losses, the pain, the simple day-to-day struggles that life brings with it?

 

Mary is one of those people. We look to her with wonder, considering the challenges of her life as Jesus' mother and the profound losses she incurred. I often wish that Scripture had recorded more of her words and her actions, but even without them, we may find a key to her strength in one sentence of her Magnificat: “Let it be done to me according to your word.” No pre-requisites, no codicils, just surrender.

 

In a homily for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope Benedict XVI taught a lesson on Mary and God’s word that is worth reflection whenever we need to be reminded of the source of our wisdom and strength. He said, in part, “Thus, we see that Mary was, so to speak, ‘at home’ with God's word, she lived on God's word, she was penetrated by God's word. To the extent that she spoke with God's words, she thought with God's words, her thoughts were God's thoughts, her words, God's words. She was penetrated by divine light and this is why she was so resplendent, so good, so radiant with love and goodness.

 

“Mary lived on the Word of God, she was imbued with the Word of God. And the fact that she was immersed in the Word of God and was totally familiar with the Word also endowed her later with the inner enlightenment of wisdom.

 

“Whoever thinks with God thinks well, and whoever speaks to God speaks well. They have valid criteria to judge all the things of the world. They become prudent, wise, and at the same time good; they also become strong and courageous with the strength of God, who resists evil and fosters good in the world.

 

“Thus, Mary speaks with us, speaks to us, invites us to know the Word of God, to love the Word of God, to live with the Word of God, to think with the Word of God. And we can do so in many different ways: by reading sacred Scripture, by participating especially in the liturgy, in which Holy Church throughout the year opens the entire book of sacred Scripture to us. She opens it to our lives and makes it present in our lives” (2005).

Broken hands are a sure path to God

After my parents died and it came time to pack up all of their possessions, I found a small statue of Mary tucked away in the dark corner of a bedroom shelf – a memory from my youth. I had named her Our Lady of the Broken Hands.

She had not come through the years unscathed. Her hands, pressed together in prayer, were missing the fingers, and her torso, once broken completely in half, had been glued together by my dad at my mother’s insistence. She would never entertain the idea of throwing away her beautiful statue just because of a little thing like being broken in a few places.

For many years, Our Lady of the Broken Hands sat on my desk at work next to a second statue of Mary with a similar affliction. She has no hands. This small, delicately carved wooden statue was damaged in a move from one office to another. When I unwrapped her and saw that her hands were missing I could not help but stop to reflect on the two statues that now stood side by side in their imperfection.

They became, for me, a constant reminder of a painful and wonderful lesson – we, like they, are beautiful in our brokenness.

And broken we are, whether or not we are willing to admit it.

My broken statues of Mary remind me that my own imperfections are the vehicles for God’s work in me, and that with faith, patience, courage and passion we can each move beyond the limitations of our imperfections to fulfill all our God-given potential.

We are God’s creation, after all, as the very imperfect king, David, reminds us in his song to God: “Lord, you have searched me, you know me; you know when I sit and stand; you understand my thoughts from afar, my travels and my rest you mark; with all my ways you are familiar . . .You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew; my bones were not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth. Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be.”

There is a reason for our imperfection. It keeps us close to God and allows God room to work in us.

But since I am always in need of reminding, I will be happy to make room next to Our Lady of the Broken Hands for any less-than-perfect statue that needs a home.

 “God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being and let God be God in you.”  Meister Eckhart

 

Google image from ngm.nationalgeographic.com

 

Mary's wisdom is a mother's wisdom

There is an adage that the best gift a father can give his children is to love their mother. I would add, after raising six sons and being a wife, the best gift a mother can give her children is to love herself.

This is a wisdom that was long in coming for me, and even though my children are all grown, I am still struggling to learn how to take care of myself.

As mothers, we have a tendency to sink into the mindset that if we can’t do everything perfectly ourselves, then we are bad mothers. Nothing can be further from the truth.  There is not a person on earth who doesn’t have limitations, and to acknowledge our limitations is not to admit defeat.

It is to be wise.

Women helping women is an ancient tradition welling up from the truth that raising children and caring for a family is hard work. There is no work harder, no physical labor more strenuous, no emotional effort more demanding. Without help we can quickly burn out and our children are the ones who suffer from that burn out.

God calls us to one thing – to love as God loves.

This has nothing to do with how many tasks, dishes or children we can juggle at one time; how long we can go without sleep, or how many burdens we can carry on our very human shoulders. 

Love is about nurturing the seeds of potential God has planted in each heart through our patience, our presence and our prayer. It is about respecting the dignity of the life God has placed in our care. It is about giving roots and wings and abundant offerings of forgiveness – not just to our children, but to our “selves.”

 “During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? … Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.”  Luke 1:39-43,56

 

 

 

In gratitude for a mother's love

For the past 20 years, I have written a column, Things My Father Taught Me, in memory of my
dad, born out of the pain of grief following his sudden, unexpected death.

My mother, who died soon after, following years of fighting cancer, has waited patiently in the wings, as she did so often at my dance recitals, fully understanding how an only child, and daughter at that, can be so deeply attached to the most important man in her life. But, as I can hear her saying, enough is enough already.

She would point out, that as a mother myself, it is time to honor the ‘women” who have loved me, cared for me and led me to God more through their strength, their actions and their unassuming presence than through their words.

Through my memories of my own mother, I can imagine the memories Jesus must have carried of Mary – smiling, crying, cooking, telling stories, praying, singing, visiting the sick, always being there even when she couldn’t take away his pain.

Mary’s life made it possible for her to understand the heart of the mother and the wife. She knows our joys, our frustrations and our pain because she has shared in them all.

When I was younger, I didn't always appreciate that. I envied Mary more than honored her. But today, having grown older and wiser, and having raised six sons, I find myself turning time and again to the mother who understands both my tears and the heart that is often so full of love it threatens to burst.

Today, when life hands me more than I think I can bear, I remember Mary, standing at the foot of the cross that held her dying son, and I am grateful that Jesus’ words were not just meant for John: “Behold, your mother.”