Although officially arriving each calendar year on March 21 at the vernal equinox, a time when day and night are of equal length, Mother Nature seemingly has different timing for its actual appearance, “always after the 8th of May,” as old folks always say. “That’s usually after the last frost,” when equated with planting flowers and gardens that would be exposed if planted too soon. How very appropriate that Mother’s Day (honoring all mothers) should fall at that precise time of year, the time when Mother Earth is being refreshed and rejuvenated and all plant life is budding and astir with new birth.
Of Webster’s many definitions of the word mother we find: “a female parent; a source of birth or origin (as mother church, mother land, etc.; a woman of authority or dignity; and one of humble station,” among others. So critical is reference to the female parent in economically deprived nations, villages, households of several children or of any circumstances under which education is not accessible to all of the children, it is stressed in the Baha’i Holy Writings for this Day, that females be given priority as they are to be the mothers and therefore the first teachers of children–“the world’s most precious gems” in whose hands we too quickly fall.
“Among the greatest of all services that can possibly be rendered by man to Almighty God is the education and training of children… and God has ordaine mothers to be the primary trainers of infants and children. This is of great importance and a high and exalted position and it is not allowable to slacken therein at all!” the Scriptures emphasize.
“The purpose of this, that to train the character of humankind is one of the weightiest commandments of God and the influence of such training is the same as that which the sun exerteth over tree and fruit. Children must be most carefully watched over, protected and trained in such consistently true parenthood and parental mercy.”
The dire necessity of such maternal training in this New Day should certainly be more apparent with the continuous relaxation of morals and manners in what infants and youth are being constantly exposed to in today’s multi-media and subsequent homes of much younger and freer mothers.
As with springtime also come thoughts and habits of spring cleaning, what an opportune time to reassess the accumulation of clutter that continues to alienate us from one another within the family, the community on the job or wherever we find ourselves (or seem to make others) most uncomfortable. We might begin by prioritizing people instead of things and placing the welfare of others before our own. Let’s throw out the clutter of resentment, ego and envy that lead to apathy, the lowest emotional state that has no handles from which one might be retrieved and replace them with purpose, hope, service and involvement which often must begin and end respectively with the nasty words of tolerance and humility.
“Humility exalteth man to the heaven of glory and power whilst pride abaseth him to the depths of wretchedness and degradation.”
As we consider in retrospect the high station, unique to mothers alone, we would remind all (and mothers in particular), “Be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed; neither be neglectful of your high destiny.” For we all derive from the same Mother Earth to whom we shall all return in some form and on whom we are all totally dependent in between.
~ HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY ~
