Arise, All Those Who Have Hearts

a sermon on the Great Mother

This was preached live at Eagle Harbor Congregational Church on Bainbridge Island, WA.

Arise, all [those] who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our [lovers] shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

“Our [children] shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We [people] of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our [children] to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.

As [workers] have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let [people] now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as [humanity], to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after their own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of [personhood] and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of [people] without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

Can I get an Amen?

What I just read is called The Mother’s Day Proclamation. It was written by Julia Ward Howe, who was a Unitarian. I did change the gendered language. In Julia Ward Howe’s day she was writing to mothers, to women, who were sending their husbands and sons off to war. 

But it is not 1870 anymore, it is 2024. And gender has become a lot more expansive, our gender roles have become a lot more expansive. The peace movement is no longer just a woman’s movement but a people’s movement. So let your spirits arise, all those who have hearts. It is Mother’s Day. A complicated day for many of us, with complicated relationships with our mothers. Complicated relationships with mothering.

So I’m going to expand the definition of that today, too, what it means to mother. I think often we insist on hanging on to the gendered expression of mother’s day, not just because we love our mothers so much—which of course we do—and want to honor them so deeply, but because of guilt. When women have children they are still too often forced into the role of the Great Sacrificer.

And women are conditioned to accept this role and to do it gladly. And Mother’s Day comes around and we think about this holy and often uneven sacrifice and we say, swe can’t take this day away from women who’ve been sacrificed for us. This impulse actually speaks to the larger conflict between those who believe that womanhood is biological and those who understand that gender is a spectrum.

I understand gender as a spectrum, each of our places on it is fluid, not static. And rather than taking anything away from those identified as female at birth and subsequently sacrificed because of it, we have the opportunity to expand our thinking, to liberate our minds, to free ourselves from being sacrificed, and to become the diverse expression of humanity that we truly are. Which expands the definition of what it means to be a mother. To perform the act of mothering.

In the drag community, when one person is new to drag and wants to become a drag queen, an established drag queen takes the new queen under their wing and becomes their drag mother.

A drag mother provides support, safety, community, mentoring, caregiving. Sometimes even a home. This is someone who is in your corner, come what may, who will tell you the truth (otherwise known as, reading you to filth), who will love you, and who you can trust.

This is where the phrase Mother is Mothering comes from. Which is when a femme icon—someone like Dolly Parton or Taylor Swift—is showing up in the world bold and unafraid, fully themselves, leading us all to self-liberation. Mother is Mothering.

And if this is the definition we’re going by, I have been mothered by so many, including my own mother, but also by my friends, my aunts and uncles, even my husband and son. And by many of you. When I came here as an intern minister, you provided me with support and safety and mentoring and caregiving. And when I came back, to my home here, you were in my corner, people who believed in me, loved me, and with whom I had built trust.

Between the time I was here last and my time now as your office manager, I went through some serious mental health issues. I’ve tried to be open about that, in my conversations with people one-on-one, partly because I need community to continue to heal. And partly because, I don’t think I’m the only one who between the years of 2018 and 2022 struggled with their mental health. And if I am able to talk about the crisis, then I am able to talk about the healing. So let me testify. Losing one’s mental health is a nightmare. But real healing is possible. It is powerful. And it is miraculous.

But it’s not like healing happens once and you’re done. Mental health is also a spectrum. But I’m fairly certain, because this is how I have experienced it, we can only really heal in community. When our community mothers us back to health.

This is the call from Julia Ward Howe in her Mother’s Day Proclamation. Ultimately, it is about how communities can make war or they can make peace. And to mother, the act of mothering, means to nurture the conditions in which peace can arise.

In United Church of Christ congregations we’ve done a lot of work to move away from gendered language of God. He, him and his. I would advocate moving more toward They language. But I am sensitive to the fact that not only do we all have our own personal relationships with God, and we use our preferred pronouns for God, but throughout the centuries, in various religions, including Christianity, including in the bible, God has taken many forms. Including The Great Mother.

So I want to ask a question. When you think of mothering, what attributes come to mind?

These are not only attributes of those have mothered us,but these are attributes of God. God as the Great Mother. Wise, tender, nurturing. The Great Mother is always Mothering, showing up as Her full self and leading us to liberation, loving us and nurturing us and teaching us not just about love but about how to nurture the conditions for peace to arise.

In Her care, we can an experience an essential oneness. The serenity of belonging. When we are held in the arms of the Great Mother we can sink in and let go because we have found a place to rest, a place of belonging, a place where we are whole and we are holy. When I returned to this congregation last year I had done a lot of healing. With the help of friends and family and the right medication, I was able to feel at least confident enough to take on the office. But there was more healing for me to do. And with the steadfast love of this community, a lot more happened. Some I didn’t even think was possible.

This is the love of the Great Mother. The love of God. The kind that sees you standing at the door and reaches out Her arms and wraps you in and says you belong here. This is a place of peace for you. Disarm yourself. This is not a place of bombs and guns, of fear and hate. This is a place of love. The epidemic of loneliness, the addiction and mental health crises we face, in our families, our communities, our world, is profound.

And the wars being fought in our name, with our country’s resources, only create more trauma and the disconnection and the fear. How do we, as a people of faith, how do we respond?

We have the tools. Here in this congregation, we have the tools. I’ve experienced it, I know you have. We mustn’t let the dominant voices in our society tell us that what we have to offer is not enough. That nurturing, compassionate love is not enough. What we have here, the care we show to one another, the healing and belonging that happens here, these are the tools.

Because as our scripture today tells us, if you have the tools, if you know what healing is, if you know serenity and peace, you are called to share it. We are learning them here in the place so we can go out and share them with all we encounter outside of these walls. Disciples of this great love.

And for those of us who are struggling, who are sitting here in this sanctuary today thinking “I do not know this serenity and peace you are talking about.”  I’m here to tell you, healing is possible. Not just once but again and again. In the 12 step groups I have been a part of, we have a saying: Don’t leave before the miracle happens. Keep showing up and know that you matter. And the miracle will happen. Keep showing up and I promise it will.

May peace and serenity arise in your hearts. May you experience it so deeply that this peace spreads like wildfire, from you to everyone you meet, and from them to those they meet and on and on, may the miracle multiply. Whether your baptism be of water or tears, tragedy or joy, may you experience today the peace of knowing that you belong and that healing is possible, for ourselves, for our earth, for our world.

May it be so.