May 11, 2025: "Mother’s Day Wisdom"

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

On this Sunday, we’ll celebrate and share some of the wisdom we have learned from our mothers or other wise elders who have helped to raise and nurture us. If you have a piece of wisdom passed down to you, that you would like shared, please send it to revsfg@uubloomington.org

Go Bloomington Carpooling Service

For this week only, Go Bloomington carpooling links are here on the website. Usually, these are in the Friday Update, and that's where they will continue to be going forward. Here they are, for first service and second service.

View the video archive of this service here:

Sermon Text

Mother's Day Wisdom

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

UU Church of Bloomington

May 11, 2025

READING

From the poem “The Art of Blessing the Day “ by Marge Piercy (excerpted)

“This is the blessing for rain after drought:

Come down, wash the air so it shimmers,

a perfumed shawl of lavender chiffon.

This is the blessing for sun after long rain:

Now everything shakes itself free and rises.

The bees dance and roll in pollen

and the cardinal at the top of the pine sings at full throttle, fountaining.

This is the blessing for the first garden tomato:

Those green boxes of tasteless acid the store sells in January, those red things with the savor of wet chalk, they mock your fragrant name.

How fat and sweet you are weighing down my palm, warm as the flank of a cow in the sun. You are the savor of summer in a thin red skin.

The blessing for the return of a favorite cat,

the blessing for love returned, for friends' return,

for money received unexpected,

the blessing for the rising of the bread, the sun, the oppressed.

… the discipline of blessings is to taste each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet and the salty, and be glad for what does not hurt. The art is in compressing attention to each little and big blossom of the tree of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit, its savor, its aroma and its use.

Attention is love, what we must give children, mothers, fathers, pets, our friends, the news, the woes of others. What we want to change we curse and then pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can with eyes and hands and tongue. If you can't bless it, get ready to make it new.”

SERMON Mother’s Day Wisdom

I have to be honest. Some years, preaching on Mother’s Day is a struggle. This year feels especially fraught. The rise of Christian Nationalism within the highest levels of our leadership in our government, along with the natalist movement that is a part of it, pretending to exalt motherhood with no commitment to programs that actually help parents (things like universal health care, access to complete reproductive care including access to abortion, anti-poverty measures) makes it even more difficult.

My own mother (and her mother too) fought her way out of that box of the kitchen and household as the only place for a woman. I grew up gratefully feeling free of that box. I know not everyone – not everyone raised and socialized as a girl – had that freedom. Too many still grow up confined by limitations and definitions made my men.

And alongside it, is a rigid, dominating and domineering box built for boys. These boxes do damage to a lot of kids. For women – the house, the home, motherhood – that is beautiful. And it is a choice. A worthy choice. And there are other worthy choices, but every woman, every person, regardless of their gender needs freedom to create their lives and grow and explore who they are – who they want to be. (Can I get an Amen?)

(* This paragraph was to be left out if there wasn’t enough time.) And let us also remember that the very first Mother’s Day was not a day of flowers and greeting cards. The origin of Mother’s Day was an international clarion call by Unitarian laywoman, Julia Ward Howe, for mothers to leave their homes and their housework in order to witness in the streets for peace around the world. The call was in reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco Prussian war waging in Europe. In her Mother’s Day Proclamation, Julia Ward Howe called mothers to take to the streets, to raise their collective voices to say no more to war, no more to having their husbands and sons return home stinking of war, having forgotten everything they taught them of love and virtue. It was a day for women’s voices to be heard – a day of power and protest.

Okay, that is my Mother’s Day rant. I needed to get that out. Now, let’s turn to wisdom!!

Last week, we explored sources of wisdom in fiction and space and the importance of both curiosity and humility – in always being open to think things anew – even upside down and inside out to find new understanding and wisdom. Next week, Scott Sanders will explore the wisdom we learn from ancient religious stories and from the ways of nature.

PAGE 3Today, in honor of Mother’s Day, I invited people to share with me wisdom they learned from their mothers, fathers, parents, mentors or others.

The writer Herman Hesse in Siddartha writes, "Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

I am going to right away start off and disagree with Hesse. We can communicate wisdom, and while just hearing it will not make us wise, if we practice the lesson or look for it in our own lives, we may find its truth and wisdom growing in us.

When I was first married, my Aunt Helen – who I adored and miss dearly, shared with me a piece of wisdom. It is not unique to her – but I am glad she passed it on. She said, “don’t make your husband your only friend. Remember to keep your girlfriends.” When she said that to me, I thought, of course – that makes sense. But, then I discovered it takes effort once you are married, and even more so after you have kids, it takes attention and care to stay connected to friends.

At first I wasn’t great at heeding her advice. I have lost touch with people and had friendships end, but I have also been blessed to have some near life-long friends, some because they were especially good at keeping up with me. And now in mid-life, I have come to more fully appreciate and understand the wisdom in what my aunt shared and the blessing that friends are – the unique place they hold in our lives.

Sandy Dolby shared with me wisdom she learned from her parents. She said: As I was growing up, my parents had a bedroom on the first floor of our home, and my siblings and I all slept upstairs. My parents' bedroom had two doors always open, and basically people walked through the small room all the time on the way to the kitchen or living room. My mother made the bed every morning, so the room always looked neat, more like a sitting room, though there was no place to sit except the bed. On the wall above their bed was a small painting of a very young Jesus and under that a very small ceramic plaque that quoted from the King James Bible: "Be ye kind" (Ephesians 4:32). Both of my parents incorporated that bit of wisdom into their lives and did, I think, succeed in passing it on to all of their children. I like to think it is the best advice I ever received, and I try to live my life by that small piece of wisdom.”

Kindness is at the heart of many people’s moral center. I have heard a number of people say “kindness is my religion.” Within Buddhism “loving kindness” or metta is foundational – it is an attitude and approach to all beings cultivated through practice.

Sue Swaney shared with me a piece of wisdom her mother told her – “Don’t wish your life away,” she said. How often do we spend our time thinking about what comes next, or wishing we were already done with something. Maybe it is High School or college, or a hard project – or maybe we just can’t wait and wish a big thing was here – to finish our PhD, to get to that vacation, to fall in love, to become a parent… whatever it is. It so easy to spend our lives, our days, lost in the past or dreams of the future – and miss the gifts and wisdom right in this moment.

This too, is a teaching deeply rooted in Buddhism – to be in the present moment – to know that now is the only time and to be awakened and attentive to it.

Herman Hesse says that when we try to communicate wisdom, it sounds foolish. Yet, when we hear something wise – even if we haven’t heard it before, it can resonate – touching a deep knowing within us.

Marge Piercy’s poem about blessing the day is like that. Much of poetry can be like that.

A mentor of mine, Laurel Hallman, who served as your first woman minister way back in the 1980s’s – taught me the practice of learning by heart wise words. It was because of her that I first created a book to hold words of poetry that struck me, stayed with me, and that I work to memorize and learn by heart. The last stanza of Marge Piercy’s poem – the call to pay attention, her reminder that “attention is love, what we must give children, mothers, fathers, pets, our friends, the news, the woes of others. The first time I read it, I felt its wisdom even as a I struggle to live it, often moving too fast – thinking too much of what is to come or what has been.

A member of our church, Steve Dillon, shared the wisdom he has come to distill throughout his life. He has it down to three lines – just six words.

Pay Attention.

Be Grateful.

Golden Rule. (Do unto others as you would have them do to you.)

In Steve’s wisdom we hear the importance of attention, kindness in the Golden Rule, and gratitude.

Another wise saying that has been told and told again – passed down for hundreds of years – 1 is from the German Catholic theologian of the middle ages Meister Eckhart, who said, “If the only prayer you say in your life is, `Thank you,’ that would suffice.” These words remind us gratitude is our highest prayer, and a wise foundation for our lives.

And finally, I want to end with wisdom that I learned from a couple in a previous congregation I served. At a Father’s Day service, I invited a few of the Dads in the congregation to reflect on what their fathers meant to them and what practices or lessons did they have to share about being fathers themselves.

Well, one of the dads, Gus Lockwood, shared that he and his wife Terry, as their kids were growing up – and especially as they became teenagers and had more freedom, they would always say to them when they left the house, “Make good choices.” Not the typical, “be good,” or “don’t get in trouble,” follow these rules, conform to this image, but rather something that recognized their children had agency and power and they hoped they would use that agency, that growing independence and power to make good choices. That feels so wonderfully UU. I picked that bit of wisdom right up and began to use it with my own son.

May we all keep ourselves open to the wisdom that others have to share. May we let go of the messages that no longer serve us, or continue to harm us. May we take up what resonates with our hearts and points us to something deeper. If something today resonated with you, may you take it with you. See if it continues to be a helpful tool or wise guidance.

Be Kind.

Be Grateful.

Pay Attention.

Don’t Wish Your Life Away.

Nurture Your Friendships.

Make Good Choices; share this invitation with your kids.

Practice the art of blessing the day – taste each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet and the salty, and be glad for what does not hurt.