Mother's Day, 2010

I’m still suffering the consequences of having adored and glorified my mother in a previous post, and that is affecting what I choose to say this Mother’s Day, 2010. The grace in such a situation is that on this day when I honor and celebrate the life of my mother it is in the context of our whole society having chosen to do that very thing for all mothers everywhere, yea, for motherhood itself. The biology of motherhood is fundamental and irrefutable. There is no human alive that did not come to this plane of existence except through its mother. Technology is knocking at the door of trying to perhaps change all that, although there is a certain folly that results from attempts to imitate or manipulate the Creator. Someday people will perhaps look back with a knowing smile on their faces at this time when it was thought that the process of new human life entering the world by way of the female womb could be improved upon, mildly amused by the creature’s attempt to become the Creator. From its mother a new life senses from the moment of birth the worth and value its mother holds for it. That is a seminal experience we carry with us for the rest of our lives, an experience that cannot thus far be artificially replicated or duplicated. The hierarchy of needs put forth by Maslow predicts the amount of discretionary esteem the mother has to offer the child; so, meeting as many of the mother’s needs as possible just makes sense. The critical importance of the mother to the development of the child is undeniable, and the relationship is unique to that mother and that child. If we are to live up to our higher callings, human beings in general will honor and respect all mothers as the life and caregivers that determine the very nature of what it means to be human.