City Lights

by Peter Lockhart
A poem inspired by Psalm 8

When I look at your heavens;
the work of your fingers;
the moon and the stars that you have established,

I wonder why the number of stars is diminishing:
the moon is not so bright
and the stars are fading...
...and disappearing

Thank God for the flourescent stars,
stuck on my daughter's ceiling,
a dim and facile sign
to remind them of what is:
the wonder of your creation,
to which we are blinding them
with our city lights
and landscaped lives.

Mother's Day

by Peter Lockhart

Days like Mother's Day are unusual. Why? Because:

• In one sense they can serve to remind us of our failure to honour our mothers appropriately every other day of the year. They become a confession.
• In another sense they can bring up painful memories of childhood, of a difficult relationship, of loss, or even the inability to have children. The become a lament.
• In yet another sense they draw us into celebrating our own gift of life and the miracle of our birth. They become thanksgiving.

Mother's Day is not a liturgical celebration of the church, although it is becoming so more and more. As we celerbate Mother's Day this Sunday take the time to reflect on what it means to do so in terms of confession and lament as well as in celebration and thanksgiving.