Happy Mother's Day

[Jane Ellingwood]

Dear friends and colleagues,

We don't have too many women who chime in to these online discussions on a regular basis (including me, these days), but I wanted to wish those of you who are mothers or who play a mothering role to others a very "Happy Mother's Day"!

As we continue our discussions related to gender and same gender relationships, we can also remind ourselves that the act of "mothering" does not have to be undertaken by a person who is biologically a mother. I was reminded of this myself earlier today, by a very thoughtful article. Fathers can be mothers too --- whether human fathers or the Father of us all. Women and men, or two women together who are in a same gender relationship, who adopt children or take in foster children can play mothering roles. People in our churches play mothering roles to us, and some of you in this forum, who are very wise and full of faith, can be mothers to us, as well as fathers. Even single people like me can have some maternal characteristics, although in my case, God didn't give me very many (good thing God also did not give me any children!). :-)))

So, honor your own mothers and those who have mothered and still mother you, and honor everyone who acts with nurturing love and care to others, and helps them to live out the faith. We come in all shapes and sizes and genders and backgrounds.

Jane Ellingwood

[Willis E. Elliott]

Amen, Jane.
1
A suburban bio-mother delivers children obstetrically once & thereafter, by
car, forever. It must be true: Loree just read it to me.
2
After church today, a highschooler came gave us a hug (as he does every
morning) & told us of an eight-months-old foster child the family (which has
white/black/yellow chn.) had just gotten. Said Loree, "I'd like to hold
her." He: "I'll bring her" - which he did, & Loree & I both got to mother
her (I while she pondered what all that white stuff was doing on my face).
/ So there now: proof of the main point of your post.
3
Language animal that I am, I ponder your post's helpful expansion of the
word "mother". And, contrarian that I am, I think of two UNhelpful
word-expansions:
3.1
"God" as personal expanded to all processes: "process theology." Whitehead
solved he religion/science standoff by sucking religion into science.
3.2
"Marriage" as the bio-instituition basic to society expanded to include any
socially & legally recognized whole-person two-person committed
relationship. This pseudo-solves the problem of fairness to homosexual
committed relationship by depriving English of a particular word for the
bio-institution basic to society. / The solution is pseudo in that the
fairness problem can be solved legally without invading the word "marriage"
& destroying its sememe.
4
Since the legal establishment (with rights equitable to the rights of
"marriage") of homosexual committed relationships is possible without the
destructive invasion of the word "marriage," why does the gay-pride movement
insist on the latter? Two reasons:
4.1
Obscurantism. To blur the distinction between society's basic institution
(the bio-family) & a relationally parallel & socially enriching but
unnecessary legal institution ("gay marriage").
4.2
Parasitism. By verbal invasion of "marriage," gay unions parasitize the
societally unique respectability of society's basic institution. Parasites
decrease the health of the organism they invade, & "gay marriage" kills
English's sememe (particular meaning, viz. the bio-family) for society's
basic institution.
5
Tomorrow, America will be between Mother's Day & Father's Day. Children
suffer from mothering-deficiency, adolescents - especially boys - suffer
from fathering-deficiency. / Yes: as you say, "the Father of all can
mother. Please, Jane, on Father's day write us a post on how "the Father of
all" fathers. / I'll stop this post with two fathering-in-American-public
education stories:
5.1
In the early '30s, our highschool's father (principal) was a huge man with
bulging eyes (from a disease now curable). He sat behind a huge desk with a
pingpong paddle near its front edge. The paddle was to terrorize & shame
miscreant male students. In my four years, I doubt that I saw a total of
more than a dozen disturbers of classroom peace "sent to the principal". /
But when threatening bodily pain became illegal in American public schools,
classroom chaos became frequent. To escape the chaos, many good teachers
(mainly women) sought other employment, & the quality of American education
declined. / An even more serious reason for the decline was the 1966
Supreme Court decision to eliminate, from our public schools, any formal
recognition that centering sense-making in the biblical God is a
constituitive element in the American mind: life's meaning, as
public-school-taught, must center elsewhere if anywhere. (For 30 years a
sister of mind had opened her third-grace schoolday with Bible reading &
prayer. When that became illegal, "I could not control them" - her last
three years prior to retirement.)
5.2
A hermit imam in PA started a U.S. charter-schools movement "to the glory of
Allah" (though that motivation cannot be taught in them). The 150 schools
emphasize math & science, on which our regular public schools are weak
because discipline in low. These covertly, silently Muslim schools have
20,000 students, with 30,000 on the waiting list. Many male teachers are
imported from Turkey. Our tax-dollars used to promote Islam's most
sophisticated mode of invading America.
6
For six weeks, son Bill is here from China to digitize my archive -sometime
after which their physical form goes to Ottawa (KS) University (where I was
Loree's major professor). One of many themes my papers record is the
gradual deterioration of American public education & its change from a
medium to an enemy of the American mind. A recent survey (Pew, I think)
said 40% of "millenials" do not believe the universe has any moral fabric -
which comports well with the fact that America's moral fabric is in steep,
perhaps even fatal, decline. And "the Father of all" has lost his severity
(Ro.11.22), is only kind if he "is" at all (to our fastest growing
demographic, he does not even exist; & to millions of Americans, he exists
but is no longer "he").
7
Of the five minds (emotional, aesthethic, religious, moral, rational), the
moral





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