Mother, mother mother...

On December 7, 1996 I became a Mother. It was not the first time. On that day my late teen children were present bearing witness, and support, and love, as I was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church making me officially Mother Richmond—even if it is a title I don’t use. Becoming a priest or embracing a religious vocation of any kind, was not something that had ever been on my radar screen until very close to my fortieth birthday when my children were in their teenage year. But even if it had reared up in my soul when they were little, I do not believe it was something I would have pursued.  I simply was not as strong, or resilient, or brave as my clergy colleagues who juggle motherhood and the demands of small children. Being ordained was complicated enough with teens who were becoming somewhat self-sufficient.

It wasn’t until I was ordained and living into the reality being a priest that I began to experience of the conflict between being a wife and mother and priest. Too often vocation and family life were at odds.  There were the big times like Christmas and Easter when family traditions had to change, continue without me present, or if I was present, deal with an exhausted, stretched thin presence in the room. And there were all the little times as well-constant evening meetings, no time off together, as my kids only free time, always conflicted with work for me.  Even church could no longer be a family affair; it was work. We all adapted and my work brought deep joy, and even once in a while, especially in this last year of retirement, being Mother and mom come together.  Family and priesthood mingle in harmony as they did the same week I was remembering the fifteenth anniversary of my ordination.

The first took place as I participated in the wedding ceremony at Riverside Church in NYC—only a few blocks from where I was ordained. The bride, Alicia, was not my child, but I had been there on the day she was born six months before Justin came along. Along with her brother only weeks different in age from Melanie, the four had grown up together. As a “friends like family” wedding, all the west coast Richmond’s all came. While definitely in the “mom” category for Alicia, I was now her minister as well—a role I had never played for her. With her brother, D.J., standing up for her, family and friends gathered together, I found myself slipping into that other Mother space as celebrant leading Alicia in her vows to Jeff, the man she loved. Standing in the cavernous ornate sanctuary modeled after a Gothic cathedral that has seen the likes of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela preaching, I felt like a speck of dust--the towering space by far the largest church I had ever presided in.  But knowing that this day was one that would be etched in Alicia and Jeff’s collective souls, I gathered myself giving voice to the beauty and love of two people committing themselves to each other.  While not totally a foreign experience, there was a surreal quality as Mother and mom blended together to bless the occasion.

It was only a few days later, back in Boston, when it happened again but the setting could not have been more of a contrast.  On St. Nicholas Day—the patron saint of seafarers and children, our grandson, Cooper would be baptized in the small stone chapel of the Sister’s of St. Anne’s in Arlington. It is the church of my heart now –the place where I regularly celebrate the Eucharist in my ministry for Bethany House of Prayer. Inside thick-whitewashed walls, sit shiny dark wooden pews. Candlelit pictures and kneelers, carvings and niches with flower adorn the space that has been washed in the prayers of hundreds over the years. Services are generally filled with meditative silences, poetry, chant, and prayers.  Most people entering for the first time find themselves drawn into the silence, talking only in whispers. Then again, most people are not one and three year old boys.

Unlike the hundreds at Riverside, we were a small but faithful group--only with too many important folks missing-- Cooper’s other grandmother, Nancy, aunts and uncles. But the Sisters along with a handful of friends, including recent father- of-the bride, Dave who led us in prayers, a dear friend and colleague from Bethany and her son, and the Godparents and their children, formed a circle of love. At first, the service felt a bit like herding cats, squirmy children anxious to be free to roam trying to wriggle free. With the Sisters exuding love and joy and not a single concern for the chaos of little ones (thankfully), I began to relax into the ancient words, pouring and blessing water--prayer.  And finally with water dripping in a startled Cooper’s eyes, I made the sign of the cross on his innocent head, “Cooper Charles, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. ” That was all, and it was everything that needed to be said. “Marked as Christ’s own forever.” Goodness, thankfulness, loved enveloped the room.

One week in December, with echoes from a day fifteen years before, my lives came together.  Honored, grateful, blessed—Mother and mom –always.