7 EASTER YEAR A MAY 4, 2008 + Holy Father, protect them in your name. It’s about protection, association, family ties and identity; above all, it’s about belonging. Somewhere around Tuesday of this past week, I realized I’m going to miss Mother’s Day. My daughter tells me it’s her day and she’s doing nothing except eating chocolate, opening presents and relaxing. My sister reminded me that I am not her mother and my son reminded me that I should be happy that he remembered Christmas. Knowing that our beloved Bishop would probably not broach this subject next week, a tear formed in the corner of my eye. Holy Father, protect them in your name. So, I started to think about my children and I smiled knowingly. My children weren’t really gone until they came back and rummaged through all the stuff they’d left behind. I also knew this would go on always, for there in the closet is the Scarlet O’Hara prom dress, the front replacement fender to the Fiero, the one that was junked years ago. There are, of course, the trophies and pictures, the dolls with no eyes and the bag of gummy worms that just had to be saved and are now a petrified amalgam of multi-colored sugar. There is the lava lamp whose ‘lava’ has solidified into an obnoxious shape but I’m sure has transformed itself into a substance that is bound to survive Armageddon. We have a collection of old license plates from her first Monte Carlo and the broken taillight from the car that saved my son’s life because it was so packed with junk when he was rear-ended. I try to sort them out and am deluged with waves of nostalgia for their pasts. These useless items seem to be statements of their existing and their belonging. However, all of this is a monument to a myth. As a parent, I always told myself that when they moved out, I wouldn’t be losing a daughter or a son to an apartment; I would be gaining a closet or two. I’d sneak into their bedrooms, open the closet doors and fantasize about the time I would have all that space for my clothes, my ‘stuff’. There would be some shelves without Christmas decorations on them and closet floor space without boxes marked “lucky running shoes”, “Snoopy’s clothes and her first high heels”. It never happened, the closet space, that is. Their places were too small for their treasures. They did however, store them at ‘home’ with me and I do have to say that they do visit them with some regularity. Each holiday I could ask, “What are you looking for?” and I’d be accused of being responsible for trashing a baseball card that could have been a down payment on a car or a record worth the cost of college tuition. My “mea culpa” never helps. I would often be reprimanded, “Mom, forget the money, this is our history. It shows that we’ve been here, it tells us who we are.” I’d say, “You could throw some of that stuff out, you know.” The glares were cold. Their belonging was something to be protected at all costs. Holy Father, protect them in your name. Throughout the years, all we wanted to do was protect them, help them know their identity, let them know they were part of something bigger than themselves and help them spread their wings. Still, there was nothing in either of their instruction books indicating the tendency to be pack rats. Where did we go wrong? I sit amongst the stuff that is, once again, left behind. Not put away, but left behind. I pick up an engraved glass and remember their proms. They both started it all with that famous line; “I need money for the prom.” They then proceeded with a drama that Cecil B. DeMill would have been hard pressed to match. Then, weeks later, suddenly she appears, the kid in jeans and a football jacket that isn’t hers is suddenly a young woman in a long flowing gown. I think, “What did she do with the braces?” I cried and wondered where the eighty four-piece orchestra came from as she came down the stairs on her special day. Ah, she was beautiful. The male child, on the other hand, is a completely different story. It’s a great scene to be the parent of a daughter on prom night. However, no movie has ever filmed the scene in which a son emerges from the bathroom in white tux and tails, looking like he just fell off a wedding cake. The piece of tissue soaking up the bloody spots on his face is a dead giveaway to his condition, as are his sweaty palms. He complains that the corsage will smell like garlic because of where I stored it in the refrigerator, all the while trying to control the wing collar shirt, the top hat and the cane. As we ran to the window to watch him climb into the rented car, I prayed for him and I remember that we had to order the car because he couldn’t spell limousine. Later in the year, as they march up in graduation gowns that are marked ‘one size fits all’, I wonder if we’ve given them all they need. Will they go forward with a name that will inspire them? Do they know whom they are and that they are special? Will they carry through with all that they have been taught? This is when the praying starts in earnest. Holy Father, protect them in your name. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus prays what is called the “high priestly prayer.” I don’t remember if it is before or after the disciples ask him if he will now bring about the Kingdom. “Lord, you are ascending. Will this be before or after you turn the Roman legions into salt statues?” I’m sure the praying continued with great intensity and I’m sure God, the holy parent, was trembling as this raucous band, who probably couldn’t spell ‘kingdom’ were handed the reins to steer the course of salvation. Can you hear God speaking to Jesus on that Mother’s Day so many millennia ago, “Son, I’m very proud of you, but I’m still not sure about your friends.” Today, a week early, we celebrate the importance of Mother’s Day, of Parent’s Day, which includes all those who have guided and offered us worth, identity, belonging, regardless of whether a biological connection was present or not. It’s a time we hold up the same concern that our Lord prayed for when he asked for protection because of association with God’s name. Very few of us understand the real power in that Name. Even as parents, few of us understand how the Name, how the great I Am is wrapped up in our becoming and in the becoming of our children. The wisest among us simply realizes that our space is still too small to store our real treasures. Few of us even can begin to fathom how much of who we are is wrapped up in the source of all that is. And so we pray: Holy one, protect them and us in your name. AMEN, The Rev. Denise P. Mantell