Courage and Motherhood

Bible Reading

Thy mother was like a vine, in thy blood, planted by the waters: it was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters. And it had strong rods for the scepters of them that bare rule, and their stature was exalted among the thick boughs, and they were seen in their height with the multitude of their branches.

Ezekiel 19:10

Sermon

It must take a tremendous amount of courage to be a mother. First to become one and then to maintain the position. It is not the kind of courage that is short term and lasts simply through some brief dramatic or dangerous period of time. No! motherhood takes the kind of courage that goes on for years and years, and in some cases for the better part of a lifetime.

Courage is not a big topic in the Bible. Indeed the word shows up in only thirty four verses. It usually is associated with being strong and fearless in battle or defending a nation against evil enemies. It is one of many noble characteristics that people can possess along with bravery, honor and valor. Swedenborg  indicated in the book, Love In Marriage, that characteristics such as these are related to our moral wisdom and that when practiced they become moral virtues. These moral virtues have various names such as temperance, sobriety, kindliness, friendliness, modesty, sincerity, courtesy, civility, earnestness, industry, alertness, lavish giving, eagerness, liberality, generosity, energy, prudence, and courage.

These are admirable human qualities and they come to us through the understanding of spiritual truths, which lead us to moral wisdom. I believe we have witnessed or experienced all of them in the person of our mother.

The experiences and hardships of motherhood help us children test and hone the truths that we learn from our religion and life experience and to use them and make them a part of our moral fiber. That is to make them active virtues which become a part of our very being. Mother’s experience these processes as they give birth to and raise children and they pass the experience and value of them on to us.

 Swedenborg indicates that women are more inclined to moral virtue than men are because men rely more on their intellect than their will, whereas women intuitively understand what moral wisdom is and are thus better prepared to act upon it and practice it.  Men reserve moral virtues such as courage for rare special events whereas women practice it daily as a matter of course. He writes that, “Women share most of the virtues which come from the will of a man’s intellect, with which a wife’s will unites and makes a marriage. The wife’s connection with these virtues is from outside, because a wife knows more about them in a man than the man knows about them in himself.”

As I was searching for information and understanding about the special qualities that women have that allows them to be mothers I discovered to my great delight a number of stories that Swedenborg tells in the book, Love in Marriage.  He too, was trying to pin down this illusive element, this special quality.  There are several stores that he tells in chapters 7, 9 11 and 12 that are quite pertinent to the subject.  In each of them he encounters several women from whom he wants to get this special information.  In the first story, he says that an angel, to whom he had made known his interest in the subject of the delights of marriage love, took him to a place where three married couples lived in beautiful houses made of olive wood.  He asked them if they would tell him about the delights of married love.  The women, “cast a penetrating look into his eyes.”  He asked them why they did that and they told him that it was so they could tell what he thought about love for the other sex, and that they perceived that his interest was intense and at the same time chaste or pure, so they would talk to him.  The men asked Swedenborg to tell them what he knew on the subject because the wives seldom tell them about it.  He said that the angel told him that wives are the vessels of married love and can sense it because they are loves from birth and all delights have to do with love.  The women just smiled and told him to be careful and not reveal any such ideas to their husbands or to any other men because they are secrets only known by women, and they only reveal them to husbands who have a real love for marriage.

In the stories you can sense the mirth in the women as they respond to this old Swedish bachelor who is well into his seventies and has never had a serious relationship with a woman.  He is so curious in his scientific mind.  He wants to understand everything intellectually and explain it so everyone can understand.  The women know he will never be able to do this but they still are kind and humor him.  They tell him that in heaven this sense which their sex has is called wisdom at play with its love and with its wisdom.  He does not understand what that means but still wants to know more.  They say the knowledge on this subject is infinite, “But we don’t want to tell you any more.”  He turns again to the husbands but they say that they only have a general sense of what it is and not a specific one.  At this point a swan appears at the window and then flies off.  The men say that this is a sign that they should be quiet about marriage love, and that he should go away now and come back at another time when maybe more things will come out. In the second story he again goes to the place where the three married couples live and he meets them in the courtyard.  The story has the same beginning as the first one. He is thinking deeply on the subject of marriage love and suddenly a golden rain appears when he approaches the houses.  When he meets them the women advise him that a white dove has appeared in the window again so they will reveal one more secret to him.  He says, “just one?  I want to learn many.”  They answer him that these are secrets.  They say that he prides himself in his great intellect but that theirs goes far beyond his because they understand all the inclinations and feelings of their love as it is built into them from birth. They then try to explain to him what this means.  Then they say that they want to reveal even deeper truths to him but they cannot because he might reveal them to other men and to husbands.  He says that that is exactly what he intends to do, after all what harm can it do.  The wives talk about this among themselves and then tell him that he can tell if he wants and that the power of women to persuade men is no secret to the other men’s wives.  They will just tell their husbands that he is telling them stories or is cracking male jokes about how things seem. “So tell the men if you want, they won’t believe what comes from your lips nearly as readily as they will the lips that they kiss.”

 This whole experience of his doesn’t really reveal anything of the nature of this special quality that women have with respect to marriage love and bringing children into the world. I’m sure, however, that the women reading this are smiling because they already know, but us fellows will just have to go on wondering. We can be the recipients of this love but we cannot understand it clearly because we try to understand it from our head and not from our heart as women do.

 One of the things that Swedenborg was able to discern and share with us was that the Lord provides a special aura of love to females that is an aura of protecting and nourishing those who cannot protect and nourish themselves.  This aura is connected with the love of having offspring. He says it is through the feminine sex that the masculine sex is affected by this aura of having and protecting offspring.  Men can experience the joy of having and protecting offspring to, in a secondary or supportive fashion, but women have this joy extraordinarily.  The aura of this love is an aura of innocence and peace and not one of power and dominance.

 How can we honor our mothers who have become what they are from such a fantastic love?  We can honor them and serve the Lord who gave them that love, by maintaining a proper balance in our daily life.  By giving due regard for the life that they have given us and to prove our love by deeds and not just with words.  The poet Browning wrote:  “No mirror shows such likeness of the face as things we live by of the heart and mind.  For we grow like the things we love.”  

 In closing I would like to leave you with these from Washington Irving:  “A father may turn his back on a child: brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies; husbands may desert their wives, and wives their husbands.  But a mother’s love endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world’s condemnation, a mother still loves on, and hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways and repent.

 Happy Mother’s day!  And may God bless you.

Dave