Mother’s Day

Date
May 19, 2017
Author
Anthony Jenkins
Category
In Between Sundays Reflections

“…For you created my inmost being
You knit me together in my mother’s womb
I praise you
Because I am fearfully and wonderfully made
And your works are wonderful
I know that full well…” -Psalm 139: 13-14

Dear Mom…

I am watching my beloved bear fruit.
And as the seed inside her body boldly unfolds
Evoking the full wonder of motherhood’s mystery
Flowing to (and through)
Her divine feminine well spring
I need to thank you –
For the most gracious gift of my life.

For the twinkle in your eye that became the wish in your womb that became me (Your first fruits).
Thank you for risking your own life to call my life forth.
Thank you for speaking me into existence.
For being the holy vessel through which my flesh came into form. Holding the vision, and guiding my seed to fruition.
For the husk. For the harvest.
Thank you for breathing me into life, and delivering me into the light of day.
Thank you for making room in your inn.
For flowing with the growing pains. And the ‘not knowing’ pains.
For offering up the time and (inner)space to knit me a place in the tapestry of spacetime.
Thank you for the blessed continuum of our relativity.
For our rhyme.

I am watching my beloved bear fruit
And it occurs to me (urgently) –
That you were my first address.
My genesis and my exodus.
The first place in which I ever did abide – or reside. And even when we collide, it is no less true – that I am native to you.
Your fruitful multiplication.

You were my first fruits.
The first food I ate and drink I drank. The first air I breathed. My first sight and sound were found in the dwelling place of you.
Your pulse was my first meter. Your voice – my first melody.
We may not always be on the same sheet of music.
But I’ll always be in your key.

Thank you for helping to compose me.
Conducting my entrance. Arranging my first movements.
I am an improvisation on your theme.
Your late-summer night’s dream awakened.
Thank you for your song in the key of (my) life.

I am watching my beloved bear fruit.
And I can hardly believe my eyes. Or begin to fully conceive of her experience –
Her chrysalis metamorphosis.
Incubating now
The hidden figure we were co-creating (and procreating) just then.
I am standing in awe of her in the present, and you in the past.
Infinity interweaving
Blessedly becoming a human be-ing
Thank you for carrying me through the sleepless nights.
And the uncomfortable days. The agonizing afternoons. The heartburn. The slow burn of our sacred fire shared.
Thank you for bearing me (and bearing with me) for three-fourths of a calendar year – in which every day was Labor Day.
Time out of mind.

Thank you for having the audacity.
They say ‘Fortune favors the bold’-
And here I stand…
Planted.
Thank you for all the things I previously took for granted
For all the things you did for me when all I could do was poke, sleep, eat – and repeat.
And all you could do was eat, pray, and love
A soul you could not see.
And the substance of things hoped for (the evidence of things unseen) –
Is me.
Thank you for the labor-ing. Your wonderful works.
My kicks. Your screams.
The blood, sweat, and tears of your yesteryear
Are here and now – my nectar.
Thank you for allowing me to sprout up through your surface – from your prime root.
To spring forth – and to stretch out into the fearful wonderful world.