Single Mother on Mother's Day
Poet, Donna Fitzgerald, shared her memories of a Mother's Day past. She said, "This Mother's Day I was reminded of going to church when Jen was little and how all the women earned praise except for the single mothers."
Mother's Day Poem by Donna Fitzgerald
The minister delivered his sermon
to the overflowing congregation.
He mentions several biblical mothers:
Mary, the most honored.
Naomi, Rachel, Sarah.
He touts just how magnificent the
great pain and suffering needed
to bring life into the world
and how
women so joyfully,
bear the punishment for eating
that deadly apple.
He then asks the men
to stand and bestow
their praise on their wives of
whom they proudly boast
"The mother of my children"
as if they owned them,
their wives their private vessel.
These puffed-up men
who stand and honor their wives
on this one day of the year,
dressed in their very best,
waiting for the service to end
and brunch to begin.
In the very last pew
sits a single woman and her child.
No praise is heaped
upon her.
The service finished she returns home
waiting for hypocrisy to end.
Why Do We Believe What We Believe About Biblical Women?
So often the stories of biblical women are reduced to the lowest common denominator. It wasn't a, "deadly apple." It was the fruit from The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve wanted to be more like God knowing good from evil. She couldn't have known it was wrong because she didn't know the difference between good and evil.
Mary must have been the most incredible person! The Gospel of Luke calls her the favored one. She raised a young man on whose teaching a world religion is based and we have been taught to focus on her virginity. What did Jesus learn from his mother?
Sarah, a mother well after menopause, was the only women through home the promise could be fulfilled. It was her only son Abraham considered sacrificing.
Bitter and cunning Naomi, who was saved by the love of her daughter-in-law.
Rachel, who took the family idols and hid them from her angry father by pretending she was having her period.
All mothers, yes, and so much more. Donna, like so many women, have been hurt by simplistic interpretations of biblical women. I am thankful for Donna's creativity and how she has used her pain to share her talent with the rest of us.
