Songs and poems about mothers and mothering are an ocean of sentiment stretching back through human history. The bond of mother and child is a pillar of human survival and civilization and a profound mystery to those of us who are male. If we’re even slightly mature, we are awed by women and the impact they have on our children (if it was good).

I got curious about this subject in popular music, most especially in the Southern roots music in which I grew up and live in. Mother’s Day was a big deal growing up, with churches somehow developing the tradition to give out roses to mothers in the congregation. It was a once per year tip of the hat to women without whom church would not exist at all. They brought the children, raised them, prayed for them and furnished virtually all the volunteer hours, particularly in the old days before women were paid for anything they did. And we didn’t ordain women then (which is, in reality, “recognizing,” isn’t it, and blessing?).

It was an odd tradition, this giving of the roses. It usually was various categories to award—the youngest mother, the oldest mother, the most children, and so on. In a small church, it would be the same ladies every year, sparking rumbles of disregarded people in the center, without a category. Churches later found more democratic ways—giving some little item out to all. In the churches with screens and fog machines, I have not a clue what they do now.

Still, in the old days, “mother” was a highly revered and honored position. Kids knew it.

A mother gave you life, got you to ball practice and without whom you might actually starve to death in a house. In a society where all is economic (the word economy, ironically, springs from the Greek word oikos, house or household). An economy is an environment of values, work, production and relationships, not, as we have perverted it, “bling.” It exists only for the Continue reading “Mothers in Old Time Songs”

I’ve begun a weekly short video devotional online called, “Looking Up.” In part I got the title from the King James Version of Luke 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. The context of the  verse is Jesus teaching about “signs of distress” and how to interpret them. That seemed useful to me in this moment. Anxiety causes many well-meaning but not well-informed folks to assume that every time the world goes through calamity that it means “the end is near.” Beyond the obvious … Continue reading Looking Up