Holy Mother of Mothers

All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.
_{John 17:10-11}

One of the most striking features in the worship space of the Lakota Lutheran Center in Scottsbluff — where I am currently serving as interim pastor — is a large, beautiful dreamcatcher adorned with feathers and butterflies that takes up the entirety of a large, round window high up in the wall behind the chancel. The image of the dreamcatcher kept coming back to me as I contemplated the readings for this Sunday. And not only did this image wind up in my sermon; I actually decided to weave a dreamcatcher while I preached!

I don’t remember who taught me how to make a dreamcatcher or when I learned. Despite their complex appearance, they are not actually all that difficult to make — all it takes is a hoop, and a single, unbroken length of string. The string forms the pattern by wrapping in certain ways and looping back on itself, ever spiraling inward toward the center, yet always remaining the same string.

Most of the readings for today pointed in some way toward this idea of oneness expressed in these verses from today’s gospel reading from John — that Jesus and God the Parent (and the Holy Spirit) are one, that we are or ought to be likewise one with God and one with one another. Today was also Mothers’ Day, which the Lakota Lutheran Center observed with a big picnic meal and celebration.

I usually tend to totally forget about Mothers’ Day, unless churchy things remind me. In part, that’s because I have no children of my own (though many have told me I give off strong “BME” (big mom energy) vibes). In larger part, it’s because today is the thirtieth Mothers’ Day since my own mom died, back in 1994. You can well imagine it’s not usually a big celebration day in our family.

But the older I get, the more I have come to appreciate the ways that my mom still lives on. She lives on in memories and stories. She lives on in the faith that I have that she is with God. She lives on in me, in my siblings and our family — I have been told my whole life how much I look like her, even how much I laugh like her or act like her. And even more tangibly, I think about how I grew inside her body for nine months, made from cells her own body produced — it’s actually hard to draw a clear line between where she ends and I begin. We are like loops formed from a single string.

And all humanity is connected in this way. All creation is connected in this way. We are all loops in a single string that begins and ends with God. We are family with all creation, all made of the same stuff. And we are bound together by the unending, all-encompassing love of God.

For me, this gives deeper meaning to the idea of Mothers’ Day. As a day dedicated to remembering where we came from and honoring those who gave us life, it would be incomplete without also remembering and honoring God. God is where we came from and where we are going — the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. God not only gives us life, God has promised us eternal life. In God’s hands, the string that ties us all together is never broken, not even by death. God shelters us and guides us, in this life and the next — for God is truly the great Mother of us all.