Happy Mother's Day

I really pity Mother's Day speakers.  No matter what they say, they will offend a significant portion of their listeners.  If they praise motherhood too much, single women and those who have never been able to bear children will feel miserable (at least those who haven't self-selected themselves not to attend the meeting).  If you say too much about those mothers who denied their own needs and wants to make sure their children had all they needed and wanted, you will offend those who felt it more necessary to have a balance, that the woman who isn't self-fulfilled can't meet her children's needs.  Likewise, hauling out the pedestal to facilitate worship of saintly mothers will elicit cries of patronizing while describing mothers are the humans that they are will disappoint those who really do feel their mothers were saints.

We had three speakers in church today - two who spoke quite personally about their mothers.  And when you come right down to it, that is probably the best tack to take.  You can hardly be faulted for describing your own feelings and memories of your mother. And they didn't generalize.  If the listeners wanted to do that, fine.  If the listeners wanted to compare and contrast their own feelings and memories, that was up to them.  Good job, Scott and Doug.