The Writings of Dennis Jones

    I grew up in Ohio, one of four preacher’s kids in my family.  I received a BA degree in English (focus on creative writing) from The Ohio State University and pursued graduate work there in journalism and radio and TV.  Following a Master’s degree in theology from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, I was an ordained Presbyterian minister 1970-1994.
    I worked with Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers Neighborhood) in Pittsburgh in the early years of his children’s programming.  To this day, Fred continues to be my mentor.
    I have worked as an editor and children’s curriculum writer, and have served Presbyterian congregations in Ohio, Kentucky and northern Virginia.  For a brief time, I was a proofreader for a skywriting company.  Following several years as a hospice chaplain in Maryland and Virginia, I joined the Erickson company in 2000 to direct the spiritual life program at Riderwood Village in Silver Spring, MD.  In July 2004 I came to Greenspring.
    I live in Herndon, VA with wife Laura (Fairfax County public school teacher), am a member of the Herndon Friends Meeting, and serve on the board of the Northern Virginia Friends School in Oakton.  Our family includes four daughters , two grandsons and a grandaughter.
    I enjoy reading, listening to any music composed by George Gershwin, drawing (pen and ink), prefer radio (especially Garrison Keillor and classical music) over TV (except for Channel 6), like to write short stories and poetry and am deeply involved in an ongoing romance with the English language.
    I believe that humor is a chief contributor to civilization in today’s world, that civilization is a chief cause of humor in today’s world, and that nothing we do for children is ever wasted or without meaning.
    Enjoy my writings: Dennis Jones     January 2006 

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Behold Our Flag
by Dennis Jones
Note: This is presented as a PDF file. Click on the title to view the document.

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May 10, 2007
GREENSPRING PETS VOTE BRAD HIBBS “PETS’ BEST FRIEND
(This will open as a PDF File)

Opening Remarks
Greenspring Annual Memorial Service, January 11, 2007

Of all the sailing vessels that navigated the Atlantic waters in the late 1800’s, few were as grand as the Connecticut Lady.  And the legend of her captain, Immanuel Jones, was known by all who weathered the high seas.

Every morning at dawn, the captain would appear on the ship’s bridge.  The attention of the entire crew focused on him.  First, he would check the ship’s station and course.  And then he would remove from his coat pocket a small slip of paper.

At one time this piece of paper had been white.  But, having been opened and folded daily for almost forty years, the paper looked more like an old piece of cloth.  Throughout his entire sailing career, the captain had gently unfolded this scrap of paper, gazed thoughtfully at its contents, and returned it to his coat pocket.  As punctual as the rising sun, this was a ritual that began each day upon the waters.

The crew had many theories about this baffling scrap of paper.  Yet, none of them had seen it up close.  Some thought it was an old photograph of the captain’s bride who had died many years ago.  Others believed that on the scrap of paper was scribbled a prayer or a poem the captain read as his own morning devotional.  They all had their speculations; still, no one knew for certain.

One day, after he had safely steered the Connecticut Lady to port, the old skipper retired to his cabin and wrote his entries in the ship’s log.  Then, sitting back in his chair, he removed his glasses, closed his eyes, and peacefully died.  The next morning, as the faithful steward was gathering his dead captain’s belongings, he respectfully removed the old man’s coat from the hook on the wall.  And the legendary scrap of paper fell from its pocket.

The steward called the crew together on the deck, that all might share in this momentous event as he revealed the sacred contents of the little scrap of paper.  Nervous, and yet with great reverence, the steward looked out among the crew members; the only sound was that of a gentle breeze.  And unfolding the scrap of paper, he read aloud these words:  “Port side is on your left.  Starboard is on your right.”

With the arrival of computers came the false promise that paper would virtually disappear from our lives.  If my wife calls and asks me to pick up something from the market on my trip home, I don’t enter it into my computer; I write it on a scrap of paper and stuff it in my pocket.  And I do the same with directions, phone numbers, reminders, your apartment numbers.  We who conduct the business of our lives in this way are continually reaching for little scraps of paper that boost our memory and make us appear to be organized.

Photographs, obituaries, old letters, diplomas, sketches and drawings and cartoons, newspaper articles.  Whatever form the scraps of paper take, they are reference points for us:  little landmarks that remind us of a basic truth:  “Port side is on your left.  Starboard is on your right.”

What matters about these scraps of paper are the names and faces that look back at us.  These images speak of flesh-and-blood reference points in our lives, keepsakes from whom we received love, and to whom we returned it.  These little scraps of paper speak of the reality of what once was – a living and laughing and singing and smiling presence – as well as the reality of the kinds of loss all of us have known.

I have brought with me this evening one of my own scraps of paper.  (Remove from pocket a folded piece of paper).  Here are words from the chorus of a wonderful song that came out of the American Civil War, a song that offered solace to all who had suffered losses, on both sides of that conflict.  It’s all here in words and music:  our spirit today mingled with the spirit of others who have gone before us:

We shall meet but we shall miss him/
There will be one vacant chair/
We shall linger to caress her/
When we breathe our evening prayer.

We welcome you and invite you to go forward with us now, from the lengthening shadow of evening, to share with each other our little scraps of paper.  Port side is left . . . starboard is right . . . and our neighbors and loved ones are here among us. In spirit, in truth, in love, in thanksgiving, in gratitude, we breathe our evening prayer.

Sing a New Song
by Dennis Jones
As we worship, many of us enjoy singing songs and hymns that have been our favorites since we were children.  One estimate claims that only about four percent of the songs in any given hymnal are sung regularly.  And often when unfamiliar  songs are introduced, we balk and say, “Why can’t we sing the good old tunes?”

This is frustrating for worship leaders eager to incorporate new music in the services.  And great can be the congregational unrest when the musical creativity of the worship leader clashes with the stubbornness of the congregation to sing only the songs they know and like.  Thus, worship leaders are encouraged by a revolutionary and guaranteed method of introducing new music to a congregation in just four weeks.  Here is how the new music is presented.

Week One.  The new song is sung during the worship service by the Cherub
Choir – the little preschool, Kindergarten and first-grade kids.  [Note:  whoever named such an agitated posse of warbling tots “cherubs” must have been focused more on hope than experience].  After they sing the new song, the members of the congregation think to themselves:  “I’ve never heard that tune before, and the words certainly are strange . . . but aren’t the children cute!?!”

Week Two.  The same song is given to the teenage choir.  [Note:  these are the kids who can put on a choir robe and make it look either like a pup tent or that large black cover you put over your barbecue grill during the winter].  After their rendition, the members of the congregation think to themselves:  “Well, that certainly sounds like teenagers’ music, and obviously they have tampered with the words . . . but at least they’re here!”

Week Three.  The same song is given to the adult choir.  Afterwards, the members of the congregation think to themselves:  “The tune is still quite strange, but at least they’re singing something we know.”

Week Four.  The new song is printed in the program as the first hymn for the congregation to sing together.  Everybody sings, and the song is sung well.  Afterwards, a visitor leans over to a regular attender and says, “I have never, ever heard that song before!”  And the regular attender replies, “Oh, we have been singing that song for years!”

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Casualties
Rumors of wars have become reports of wars;
and with those reports . . . casualties.
by Dennis Jones
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We Who are Fathers
by Dennis Jones
"It is a wise child that knows its own father,
and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him."
- Mark Twain

We who are fathers look forward to that special day called Father’s Day – a day
just like Mother’s Day (my daughter told me when she was a little girl), only you buy a cheaper gift.

We who are fathers confess that many of us are set in our ways, and suffer frequent attacks of milestones.  We remember that by the time a man realizes that his father was usually right, he has a son who thinks his dad is usually wrong.

We who are fathers ask forgiveness for being gone from home so much, for being inadequate father figures, for losing our tempers for bad reasons.  We apologize for our inability to cope with many routine activities around the house that are so gracefully handled by our wives, like the time we fixed Hamburger Helper and forgot the hamburger.  We regret the many times we thought we were giving our children sound advice by saying to them, “Go ask your mother.”  We honor all fathers in their old age, especially since we helped our own reach it faster.

We who are fathers are now willing to share what we know about when to be tough, and when to be tender.  And we apologize for our tendency to mount the family soap box for colorful orations at the drop of a problem.

We who are fathers defend our desires to be alone occasionally with our wives, to have, like, you know, adult conversations with them, even just to spend a quiet evening at home on the sofa – which was all we could afford to do after paying for braces, allergy shots, music lessons and tuition fees.

We who are fathers are humbled by the double standard we learned from our own parents, and often employed as parents ourselves:  if kids are too noisy, we discipline them.  If they are too quiet, we take their temperature.

We who are fathers admit that tiredness and overwork take their toll on fatherly responsibilities; and we hope others understand that every now and then it’s OK for Dad to just stretch out and unwind in his recliner, and solve all the problems of the world with his eyes closed.

We who are fathers give thanks for our wives and children, without whom status as fathers would be impossible.  We celebrate one of the most important distinctions fatherhood has to offer:  to help our children reach their goals, and (as our neighbor Fred Rogers said) to accept them as they are.

We who are fathers are grateful to be honored on this special day.  Bring on the cheaper gifts!

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My Visit with Grandma
A Very Special Easter Childhood Memory from Ohio
by Dennis Jones 

When I sat down by Grandma’s bed,
she smiled her marvelous smile.
And even though she’d been quite sick,
we talked for a long, long while.

As she told stories about when she was a kid,
I absent-mindedly helped myself
to a big bowl of peanuts beside her bed,
setting there on Grandma’s shelf.

“I can no longer eat them,” she said,
“so, finish them off, if you wish.
 I just suck off the chocolate,” she added with a wink,
“and put them back there in the dish.”

Laughing Matters
by Dennis Jones

What do you think God does for fun?
Do you wonder if something mischievous is ever planned, just for the fun of it?

I wonder if God ever lets go, and takes a wild rollerblade ride around the world,
or ties a rainbow in knots, or plays marbles with the planets,
or goes wading in the ocean, skipping across the continents.

I wonder if the hyena and the kangaroo
are a couple of God’s favorite jokes that were created just for laughs.
I wonder if the monkeys at the zoo are a kind of sacred comic strip
about how humankind behaves, a clue as to how much fun we could have
if we weren’t so anxious about which side of the cage is ours.

I wonder if God ever yearns to laugh with those of us who still laugh,
those who live for the punch line and the antics of a small child,
those who know that laughing matters,
and who understand that life without laughter is an insult to everyone,
especially God.

Wouldn’t it be great if God led us in a boisterous fling across the city,
with the wind blowing in our faces, the birds cheering us on
as we delivered enormous red balloons to every school, cathedral and park we find?

What fun it would be if God joined us
setting little firecrackers under every pompous preacher and politician in town,
painting on every single street (in iridescent pink and green)
that every day is a gift from God,
and anyone who doesn’t laugh and shout for joy gets no more paint.
I mean it!

Wouldn’t it be great if we could loosen up this world a bit,
and toss a few water balloons at all those
who insist on pulling tomorrow’s clouds over today’s sunshine?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could stop all traffic for a whole day,
and have a memorial ticker-tape parade for all the orphans we have made,
and turn the land into a world’s fair,
and throw handfuls of confetti into the air,
and let everyone know that God has come to be with us, just for the fun of it.

Some day everyone will know beyond a doubt
that there is no stopping the laughter of God once it gets started.
For God wants exuberant life for all of his children,
life that is, indeed, a laughing matter.

Now, please give me some more of that paint! 
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Welcome and Introduction to Memorial Service,
January 18, 2006
From my perspective, this has been another beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Soon we will give ourselves unto the night.  Yet, for a few minutes, we have paused here in the light of our chapel, to join with neighbors who are around us, and to remember neighbors who have gone before us.

Thank you for being here this evening.

My father died on a sunny September day in 1969.  The next day I read his obituary in our local paper:  “Rev. Jones leaves behind a wife, Evelyn, and four sons – Allan, Dennis, Lynn and Timothy.”   As I thought about how his absence would affect our lives, I mentally rewrote the obituary:  “Rev. Jones’s wife Evelyn and his four sons – Allan, Dennis, Lynn and Timothy – will somehow carry on without him.”

Thirty-six years later, I realize that time does heal some wounds.  Yet, I also realize that so much of my healing took place when I was surrounded and supported by others.  And now I see that the primary stimulus to healing is not found within the lonely individual, no matter how strong, but in the group that makes the individual possible.  The community.

In our so-called secular society, there are those who experience the loss of a loved one and who straightway move on.  This they do without leave-taking rituals, or without a community involvement or history.  These folks seem to do very well as they carry on.  Yet, memory and ritual have long been honored values of community life; and they speak not only to us, but to others who look to us. 

In the year 125 AD, a Greek philosopher wrote to one of his friends about a village he visited that had greatly impressed him.  If he were writing today, he probably would have used the words “traditional values.”  For in so many ways, the people of this village had created, nurtured and passed on, customs that gave the community its strength, its hope and its vision.  He was trying to explain in his letter the power of these values in the life of the village.  And this is the one example, the one value among them all he chose to include in his letter: 

If any member of the community passes from theworld, [he wrote] with tears and with tribute they rejoice and offer thanks to their God.  They escort the body with songs and thanksgiving as if it weresetting out from one place to another nearby.  How they carry on in this act of sacred community theater!  And every year they return to remember their losses,and to bring into their midst those who have moved to a further shore, but are now returned through stories and memories.

Whatever our faith tradition, I sense there is a corollary of belief that community gives meaning to those eternal values of real power that enable us to carry on.  And they are most evident when we live, and love, and laugh; when we experience loss as a celebration of life, together, as members of a community.

There is a ritual wheel that works the space between the living and the dead; and it gets us where we need to go.  It makes room for the good story, the good laugh, the good cry, and the power of faith brought to bear on the mystery of mortality.  This wheel provides a pause sufficient to say that our lives and our deaths truly matter.  We all join hands, and the broken circle of folks who shared blood or geography or belief with the dead, is a full circle again.  In our community, the wheel that works the space between the living and the dead runs smoothly.
- Dennis Jones                                                                                                          

You Who Would Tell Stories___________________________

Remember the days of old,
consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you;
ask your elders, and they will tell you the story. 
Deuteronomy 32:7

Regardless of what faith tradition you call home, you probably know something about what many Christian congregations call “the annual Christmas pageant.”

The pageant is the children’s way of portraying the story of the birth of Jesus in the New Testament.  The pageant is always highly creative, frighteningly spontaneous, and incredibly irreverent in a way that brings smiles to the faces of even the most conservative biblical scholars.

Little children dress up as Mary and Joseph, shepherds and wise men, scores of angels, and other characters who may or may not have been in the original story, or even in Jerusalem, for that matter.  There is something guiding the whole production called a script, which bears absolutely no resemblance to the actual performance; and the costumes worn by the children run the gamut from Raggedy Ann to Casper the Friendly Ghost.

To be one of the characters in the annual Christmas pageant you need only minimal qualifications:

2. you should be able to find and stand on the proper little white “X” on the floor once you arrive on stage; and,

3. when you are not speaking, you should be able to stand relatively still, and not wave to your parents and grandparents in the audience, or pick your nose, or both

One year the child who was to portray the innkeeper came down with a definitive case of chicken pox, and was unable to say the seven words that have forever cast the innkeeper as one of the “meanies” of the New Testament:  “There is no room in the inn.”  At the last minute, Wally was drafted to fill in for the itching innkeeper.

Wally was a sensitive child who took his responsibilities seriously; and when the pageant director gave to him a slip of paper upon which were written his seven words, Wally secluded himself in a nearby classroom.  There he worked on his pronunciation, his inflection, his gestures.

Later that evening, the audience displayed eager anticipation as they waited for the curtain to open.  There were more video cameras in that auditorium than in any Circuit City warehouse.  When Mary (who had the poise of a miniature Lucille Ball) and Joseph (who seemed determined to imitate Charlie Chaplin’s walk) appeared on stage, they moved slowly toward the inn, which – thanks to a highly-creative set designer – looked more like a Motel 6.  They were greeted by Wally, who had worked on his lines all afternoon.  He said in a kind of middle management voice, “There is no room in the inn.”

Now, the little girl and little boy who played Mary and Joseph were veterans of several annual Christmas pageants.  Certainly they were not a pair of naturals like Tracy and Hepburn; yet, as a husband-and-wife team, they were budding thespians.  And each year there was more and more emotion added to the scene at the inn.  Mary and Joseph displayed great consternation as they pondered aloud what they would do following their rejection.  Mary could bring forth real tears; and Joseph was the epitome of the loving and protective husband as he did his best to comfort her.  Even the St. Bernard Mary was riding on released a low whine when Wally said, “There is no room in the inn.”

Wally was completely caught up in this sad scene.  For him, this was real, and not just amateur theatrics bathed in stage lights.  His heart went out to the forlorn couple on stage as they turned to leave the inn.  And, undoubtedly, in the most sincere line spoken the entire evening, and as the most memorable deviation from the script, Wally cried out, “Wait!  You can have my room!”

The one who said, “Remember, Israel, the day of your freedom from Egypt;” and the one who said, “Do this in remembrance of me;” and the one sipping coffee with other family members around the kitchen table who said, “Remember that year we had all the bad luck?” – these people were not merely jogging our memories.  They were urging us to use stories to bring to the present our creative and redemptive past.  We often do forget; and sometimes we embellish the script with our own lines.  Yet, we can always look to others to tell us the story.  And we can be for others the ones to tell the story.

Remember the days of old,
consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you;
ask your elders,
and they will tell you the story.

- Dennis Jones

A Holiday Paraphrase of I Corinthians 13
by Dennis Jones
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Welcome: Stained-glass Window Celebration
Dennis Jones, November 2, 2005

Have you ever had the feeling that as you stood before  a group of people, they were more interested in something  above and behind you than they were in you….?

Please try to picture this in your minds:  A large cathedral housing many examples of stained art glass.  And standing together in front of one of these massive windows are three companions, three of the greatest thinkers of the  20th Century.  They are:  Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown.      Admiring all the beauty before them, Lucy says, “Aren’t  these windows beautiful!  I could stand here all day  discovering new images.”

Then she asks Linus to use his imagination, and to describe what he sees in the changing interaction of light and color and symbols.

“Well,” Linus says, “this over here looks to me like a map  of the British Honduras in the Caribbean.  As the light changes, clouds seem to appear.  And that cluster over there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the  famous painter and sculptor.  And that grouping over there gives me the impression of the biblical story of Moses parting the waters.  I can see Moses with his outstretched  arms, and the great waves, and the hordes of amazed  people rushing to safety.”

 Lucy says, “That’s very good, Linus.”  And turning to her  other side, she says, “What do you see in the stained glass,  Charlie Brown?”

And Charlie Brown replies, “Well, I was going to say I  saw a ducky and a horsey, but I changed my mind.”

This past April there appeared in the chapel lobby an  attractive and informative display created by Jeanne Henifin  that showed four stained-glass window designs.  They were  titled “CREATION,” “DOVE OF PEACE,” “TREE OF LIFE,” and  “PEACE BE WITH YOU.”

These were, of course, simply designations intended to  guide you in choosing the design you would like to see in  our chapel.  To say, simply, “DOVE OF PEACE” does not  begin to express its beauty and meaning for all of us.  Only  the window can do that.  And yet, who would dare to try to  capture in words all the meaning this window embraces?

For some eyes, there may be a ducky and a horsey  somewhere in there?  And just because I cannot see them  does not mean they are not there for you.      For some eyes, there may be in addition to an image, the fulfillment of a great architectural expectation, the  embodiment not just of a dove, but also of a dream.

For some eyes, this window may be the opening  sentence in the story of a rather lengthy process.  The  image before us may prompt memories within us of a  committee sharing their ideas,  selecting a creative artist,  reviewing his proposed designs (also called “window  shopping”), making a final selection, and then eagerly  awaiting the installation.

For some eyes, this window may tie together other  elements of our community.  As Gene Higgins said, “Peace  with our past, peace with our neighbors, peace with  ourselves, and peace with our God.”

And for some eyes, this window may become a regular  impulse to contemplation and to prayer, an image to consult  before we enter into both silent and spoken messages.  To  paraphrase the hymn, this image may “speak to us that we  may speak, in living echoes of thy tone.”      This is your window.  What and who you see within it is  your vision to cherish and to share with others.  This is a new  chapter in your Greenspring story to remember and to tell  again.  And for this we give thanks and celebrate.

Welcome to our celebration

Creation
By Dennis Jones, Pastoral Ministries. 7/20/05
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HOE HUM
By Dennis Jones, Pastoral Ministries. 6/9/05
“No gardener ever plowed a garden by turning it over in his mind.”- Ancient Iowa proverb

Humankind does not live by bread alone.  Nor does life last very long without it.  To eat is to acknowledge our dependence – both on food and on each other.  Thus, we give thanks for the food there is, and for all who grow, prepare and share it.

At this time of the year, our thoughts turn to gardening.  We remember many folks who think that what goes down must come up; and they are called “gardeners.”  We smile as we recall those optimistic folk who drop seeds into the ground, and then jump back quickly, before a stalk of corn can poke them in the eye.  Truly, there is no better demonstration of faith than planting seed in a garden.

We remember fondly would-be gardeners who experience a root awakening every year, when they realize that seed catalogues are often a form of science fiction.  And each of us knows those who annually use so much plant food and fertilizer, that the gardens end up eating better then they do!

We recognize the humor in the fact that though the Lord giveth, sometimes the aphids, chinch bugs and cutworms taketh away.  Still, victories do occur . . . as when a shrewd gardener created a scarecrow so effective that the crows brought back seeds they had stolen the year before . . .

We rejoice with (and envy) those who seem to have green thumbs all the way up to their elbows.  My former neighbor could make a salad and it would take root.  She has a hedge made out of broccoli.  I have killed so many plants that I walked into a nursery once and my face was on a wanted poster.  When my own gardening successes do not measure up, the best I can do is to try to reduce my own bumper crop of sour grapes.  In the meantime, this is my motto:  If you water it and it dies, it’s a plant.  If you pull it out and it grows back, it’s a weed.

Yes, all these scenarios are reminders that we are not self-sufficient, that we depend on the anonymous persons who keep us alive and nourished – the relatively few farmers who feed this hungry planet and supply us with what we need.

Thus, we can rejoice in the freedom they give us:  to read a book, to write a song, to visit a shut-in, to paint a picture, to jump in on God’s creation.

Or, maybe, with lots of luck (and a sense of humus), to cajole a summer garden to harvest.

For Which Hallmark has No Card,
A Mother's Day Assessment
By Dennis Jones, Pastoral Ministries

But over their shoulders, God and
our mother, signaling: "Ridiculous.".
-From “Our Kind," by William Stafford-

Most of what I know about Mother's Day I learned in the Midwestern Protestant church where I grew up. Not counting the obligatory breakfast-in bed fiasco before, or the customary take-Mom-out-to-lunch adventure afterwards, the high drama of Mother's Daytook place in church Sunday morning. Because of this, years later as a student of church history, I was determined to find the theological connection between the Church Fathers and my church's mothers. I never did find it.

 One of my suspicions was that sometime in the first century after Christ, there had been a Saint Hallmark who saw the benefits in such an annual observance. He cared enough to send the very best of his ideas throughout his large family for over 2000 years - a family which today has descendents in practically every shopping center in the capitalist world.

In my church the commemoration of Mother's Day was the sole responsibility of one of the church's standing committees which, appropriately, was called the Mother's Day Committee. One of their customs was to purchase flowers and present them to every mother in attendance on Mother's Day. If you were a mother and your mother was still living, you got a red rose. If you were a mother and your mother was not living, you got a white rose. The ushers at the back of the sanctuary mumbled under their breath a little mantra to help them properly distribute the roses: Living, red; white, dead.

I saw this as a thoughtful gesture until the year my grandmother died in April. My mother was erroneously given a red rose when we arrived at the church; but she graciously accepted it with the same unflappable poise she displayed year after year when presented with breakfast in bed. In her seat, she gently held the red rose as she bowed her head. Moments later, when the mistake was realized by an observant usher, an efficient Mother's Day Committee member marched down the aisle to our row, and my mother's red rose was abruptly taken from her and replaced with a white one. . .

Each year during the Mother's Day worship service, a little trophy was given to the mother in the congregation who had traveled the greatest distance to be there. And every year that I could recall, Ida Marie Kiracoff's mother would take another of these prizes with her on the plane back to Anchorage, Alaska.

One year, Carol Mitchell secretly flew her mother into town from Sydney, Australia. Ida Marie Kiracoff was so crestfallen over her mother's not winning the trophy that some fast-thinking peace-keeping committee member immediately stepped forward and announced that, beginning that very year, there would be a continental and an intercontinental travel award. . .

In one of the few places - sacred or secular - where this kind of behavior would be tolerated, an award was also given to honor the oldest mother in attendance. One year, Jean Richmond's mother was ceremoniously escorted to the front of the sanctuary to accept this coveted award. She was 97 years, eight months, and 23 days old at the time. She had captured this honor annually since she was 90; and the smart money in the choir loft had marked her as a shoe-in once again.

 Earlier in the year, however, Margaret Hilliker, who worked at the court house, had discovered quite by accident that Jean Richmond's mother was actually 91, and not 97; and Margaret, after several sleepless nights, felt duty bound in a court house kind of way, to announce this revelation during the Mother's Day worship service.

 In a bloodless (though heartless) bureaucratic coup, Jean Richmond's mother was downsized from being the oldest mother to being the third runner up, for which there was no award, because frankly, who cares? Jean Richmond's mother and Jean Richmond never returned to our church; and it was rumored that they had joined the Methodists.

 Unfortunately, the new and chronologically-lawful heir to the throne was not the least bit flattered by the award; and she did not take kindly to having her age held before the congregation as if it were the highest score in a diving competition. Her age was also printed in the church newsletter the following week in 38-point font; a passport-quality photo was also included. With Jean Richmond and her humiliated mother, she, also, never returned to our church.

I have watched little pockets of the church from both sides of the pulpit as their people celebrated Mother's Day and claimed it as a Bible-based religious festival marked by flowers, awards, and sentiments of maternal praise dubiously attributed to Jesus, but most likely expressed by some dead poet or one of the Peanuts characters, and then ultimately captured in feminine calligraphy by the folks at St. Hallmark's for $3.95 and up.

I have watched husbands and wives come to church through different doors on the first Mother's Day after a separation has begun the formal unraveling of the family. No matter if Mother is alone and the kids are with Dad, or vice versa: everyone has custody of the pain.

 I have watched childless couples in church and parents of "problem" children making undaunted efforts to enter into the poetry and pageantry of Mother's Day, each perhaps wondering how it might have been, if . . . and confident that, with one more chance, they would make better families than many of the parents and children seated around them. These couples tend to hold hands throughout the worship service and leave quickly afterwards.

 As the guardian of confidential information they shared with me, I have watched individuals come to worship on Mother's Dayin spite of an on-going and sometimes long-standing estrangement separating them from their mothers. Are they looking for clues that will heal the wounds, allowing them to no longer celebrate this –day under false pretenses? Or are there within them happy and uncomplicated memories of Mother's Days of long ago that will help them get through this day, just as they so often help them make it through the night?

 I have watched innocent and totally unaware parents walk into the church as usual, not realizing until they were trapped in their seats that today is Mother's Day, and for them, the first Sunday back at worship since their child was buried.

 And I have watched church staff members abandon all traces of sensibility and sensitivity as they devised Mother's Day festivities and worship events with little or no discernible religious foundation. Face it: singing "Faith of Our Mothers" is more than just a bad hymn day for the Bride of Christ; it is also embracing a faith that not even a mother could love.

 I have been chided by colleagues in the church for making such an issue about one of the most lovable celebrations of the year. "Maternal heresy," I think, was the charge. And I have quietly been counseled that, given the current political climate, my words and suspicious behavior may portray me as a "person of interest" who bears watching.

 There will always be those mothers who graciously accept their awards and roses with a tear and a smile and all the accompanying well-intended theatrics, I am told. Just as there will always be those mothers who fly dejectedly back to Anchorage with a tarnished trophy, and those who will storm off to the church down the street where they truly appreciate their mothers, no matter how old they are not. The church always responds to numbers; and though a few exceptions may cause us to pause and think, apparently they will not make us change any policy that goes up against the Seven Last Words of the Church: "We always celebrate Mother's Day like this."

If the church is determined to include Mother's Dayin its liturgical calendar of events, perhaps the guiding influence should come from those we claim to honor: the mothers. Why not ask them what we should do on this day? I suspect the answer will call for a minimalist format, reflecting every mom's readiness - even when given first choice - to pick the smallest piece of pie in the pan at home, and the least-expensive Mother's Day brunch at the mall.

As poets so often do, William Stafford recalled his mother, still feeling the weight of her invisible forces:

Our mother knew our worth - not much.
To her, success was not being noticed at all.
"If we can stay out of jail," she said,
"God will be proud of us."

 Well, there is hardly much sentiment there for a message inside a Hallmark card. Yet, behind the wry humor is that "back to basics" philosophy, a liberating word of encouragement for us to cast off so much of the Mother's Day fluff that - like lint in the dryer filter - eventually clogs up the whole works.

Rather than spending so much time, effort and money on choreographed celebrations in our churches, why not give to Mom what she has longed for so many times throughout motherhood: a few moments of silence? Silence for her and for us. Silence to find our own way back to Mom. Silence for Mom to thank God for keeping her kids out of jail, and to ponder for herself what really makes this day meaningful.