The wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures, of which The Book of Proverbs is a part, talks about the Wisdom of God as almost another person beside God, feminine in nature and expression, and at the heart of what makes the world good. The reading this week invites us to listen to the voice of this Woman.
We should probably never under-estimate either the power or the importance of the voice of mothers -- at least that voice of those mothers (biological and spiritual) who live their calling to care for the children -- their own and others.
A hundred years ago, a thousand mothers gathered in The Hague, Netherlands to try to stop what was then called "The Great War" and that we now call more simply (and depressingly) "World War One." They didn't succeed, but their voice is not lost and maybe part of their legacy is the variety and vitality of mothers' voices we have heard and still hear since then, like that of:
- mothers in America in the early 60's against the willingness of their leaders to go to war in the Cuban Missile Crisis
- mothers in northern Ireland united against the sectarian violence
- mothers in the Middle East learning ways of mediation and understanding
- mothers around the world organized against nuclear armament
- Mothers Against Drunk Driving
- mothers in the first world supporting mothers in the third world in their need for better health care and education for their children, and micro-economic investment in their own local industries and initiatives
- mothers of young black men slain by members of police forces in the States calling for attention and justice (which makes me wonder if anyone years ago heard the voices of First Nations women in Canada as their children were taken from them, and away to residential schools)
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