Advent

I haven't written since after Thanksgiving.  We are in my favorite time of year, Advent, and yet I have not had much time for myself to sit down and type on the computer.  Often during Advent, I think about motherhood; what it is to be a mother, how it changed me and what God called Mary to be as a mother.  In the past few days I have especially been thinking about motherhood.

I have always had an image of Mary as a new mother as a woman full of conflicting emotions.  She must have been quite frightened to be carrying and giving birth to this child who would redefine humanity.  She probably only had an inkling of what this would mean to her life and to her family's life.  I believe (as the Bible indicates) that Mary had more children.  A good Jewish woman of the time was a faithful mother and provider in the household.  I find it hard to imagine what life was like for her without running water, electricity or the simple privileges we have in the modern world.  However, as a mother, I do understand the joys and sorrows she experienced in raising children.  She was probably tired some days and also she probably worried (for even the best of us forget sometimes that we can pass our worries on upwards).  But more than that I am sure that she rejoiced in watching her children grow and change and discover the world around them.

This weekend the wanderings of my regular Advent meditation change a bit.  The tragedy in Connecticut got me to thinking.  When a grown up dies, it is somehow expected, and although we do feel sympathy for that person's parents, we can remove ourselves a bit more easily from their pain.  When a child dies, it is different.  Children are little beacons of life and hope.  There is no explaining such violence in the world or understanding how anybody could pick up a gun and kill such a beautiful example of life and hope.

My children are four and nine years old.  They are in very different places right now in their development.  However, they both attend school at the local elementary school.  My younger child is in preschool there a few hours a day and my older is a fourth grader.  Although, I haven't felt more apprehensive about sending them to school this week, I have thought about how precarious life can be.  On Sunday out of an abundance of caution, I told my older child what had happened in the elementary school in Connecticut.  He listened and asked a couple of questions, ending with the comment that since the gunman was dead, then we didn't need to worry.

Life is an uncertain thing.  It is never guaranteed and at times like this I remember to savor each moment I have the privilege of walking upon this earth.  I got an email from my Dad the day of the shooting, telling me to hug my boys before I put them to bed.  I was speaking with a friend yesterday who was in a dilemma about what to do about holiday travel with her children, both of whom are pretty sick right now.  As mothers we all need to find our own path and to figure out what is best for us and for our children.  We get advice and we share advice and we seek the best path for our children.  In the case of hugging them before bed, it is an easy decision.  In the case of keeping to home to keep them healthy and oneself sane, it is a harder decision, because she must disappoint other people she loves.  But in both cases it is the welfare of our little ones which is preeminent in our minds.

Like Mary, she couldn't have known that she would stand at the foot of a Roman cross and see her child die.    Parents must all deal with uncertainty and worry about who their child will become.  I do still have trouble some days sending my boys off to school, especially my older son.  I know I am continuing the separation process that began really when he left my womb.  It is a strange sensation not to be able to totally protect him.

We love our children, but ultimately it is our job to teach them how to say goodbye to us.  They are destined for their own lives and we can only hope they are lives of love, righteousness and honor and that we will remain part of those lives.  We also hope and trust that most of the people around them are good honorable people too.  I think that was true in Connecticut as well.  There was one person who went and violently rearranged the lives of a school and ultimately a town, perhaps a nation, but there were and are hundreds and thousands of people who helped and continue to help those who are wounded and those who died.  It is an awful tragedy and we must mourn, but we must also hope, because without hope and forgiveness we are nothing and can do nothing to change the world for our children.