My mom died: I have some thoughts about God

I apologize for being away for a while. I got the call in early August that my mom had terminal cancer and would die soon. This situation wasn’t tragic. My mom was 87 years old. She terribly missed my dad, who had died five years earlier, after 60 years of marriage. She had dementia and was probably destined for the memory care unit at her CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community). But she really, really didn’t want to move out of her independent living apartment, the one she had shared with my dad, the one that was full of the familiar furniture she had lived with her whole life, the one where her children and grandchildren could visit and spend the night.

My mom had been ready to go and was relieved by her diagnosis. She was very lucid her final few days, full of joy and gratitude for the life she had lived. Surrounded by her children, children-in-law, and grandchildren, amidst laughter and tears, she repeatedly expressed her love for us and her peace with passing. Her death was perfectly gentle. My siblings and I were around her, chatting, then realized that she was gone.

I would like to share a few thoughts with you about these events. I’m a theologian, and I can’t help but to theologize. Recognizing that my mom’s death was natural, not tragic, this won’t be a theodicy, or explanation for why bad things happen to good people. Instead, this will be more of a reflection on life and faith, death and God, love and loss. Maybe these thoughts will prove helpful to you, if only a little bit.

Thought one: God is a good mother.

When my mom died, I lost the person on earth who loved me most unconditionally. Please don’t get me wrong: I was blessed to have two good, kind, skillful parents. My dad was a loving dad. But your mom—if she’s a good mom—is, well, your mom. She bore you, nursed you, raised you, and loves you. She’s got your back, tenderly, affectionately, and fiercely.

The writers of scripture recognize this and provide numerous maternal metaphors for God. Today, these metaphors help heal those who have good moms. They’re especially helpful to those with bad dads.

These ideas feel natural to me because I grew up with the concept of an omnigendered God. In the 1980s, my minister referred to God as our Parent in all cases excepting the Lord’s Prayer. When I asked him why, he explained that many people in his generation had fathers who were emotionally distant and interpersonally authoritarian. They provided order but not warmth, discipline but not nurture. Since he wanted his male parishioners to have an emotional relationship with God, he referred to God as Parent whenever possible and preached on the maternal aspects of God found in the Bible.

To this day, most churches refer to God with exclusively male language. These same churches lift up an exclusively male hierarchy to represent God and govern God’s church. These hierarchies, which are of course patriarchies, have little interest in maternal metaphors for God. They don’t see such metaphors as a pastoral opportunity; they see them as a political threat.

I contend, quite simply, that denying parishioners the opportunity to think of God as mother is pastoral malpractice. Suppose someone had an abusive father, either physically, emotionally, verbally, or sexually. Should that person be consigned to thinking of God exclusively as father for the rest of their lives? Supposing that same person had a kind mother who did her best to protect them from their father’s abuse. Should that person be prevented from thinking of God as mother? How much would this limited concept of an unlimited God harm that person’s faith life?

If someone thinks of God as father, and that works for them, then fine. But they shouldn’t prevent others, who need to think of God as mother (or as nonbinary, or as both, for that matter), from using the concept of God that produces spiritual flourishing for them. And they shouldn’t make that concept unavailable.

Since churches host a variety of parishioners, with a variety of spiritual needs, churches should offer an array of theological concepts and divine genders to meet each parishioner’s needs. Denying parishioners a concept of God that facilitates deep spirituality is negligent.

Thought two: Everything on earth is mixed together and can’t be separated.

At the end of the summer, before our oldest child returned to college, my wife and I took our children out for breakfast. We asked them to share their high points of the summer and got some standard responses—camping, boating on Lake George, going to Six Flags, riding the ferris wheel in Montreal, etc. But then all three children agreed that saying goodbye to their beloved Nana was a treasured moment.

How can sitting around a hospice bed in an old folks home with your terminally ill grandmother be a treasured moment? You don’t find it on a lot of people’s bucket list.

But maybe it should be, because we are made for more than fleeting happiness; we are made for abiding joy. Only love produces abiding joy, and love was very much present in that room. We shared memories, laughed, and supported one another.

And we cried, because love doesn’t come alone. Love comes, inevitably, with loss. Love and grief are as entwined as birth and death. If we love deeply, then we will also grieve deeply. But love is worth the cost of grief, because only a life of love is sacred.

God is love, so surely God grieves. The living God deeply participates in humankind, a participation expressed through incarnation, through Emmanuel, or “God with us”. But participation also expresses vulnerability. Our divine Parent must weep over our cruelty to one another, just as they rejoice over our kindness to one another. The bloody cross and empty tomb reside together in the heart of God, side by side, always and forever.

The Christian story expresses these truths through the church calendar, which runs the gamut of emotional life. We celebrate birth at Christmas, mourn death on Bad Friday, and proclaim resurrection at Easter. Death is an ever-present reality that seems to threaten love. But resurrection assures us that a loving life is sacred life, and death cannot defeat sacred life. Death may appear victorious, and grief may appear to have the last word, but in the end God grants victory to life because God is love.

In that room with my mom, over her final few days, we embraced the combinations: laughter and tears, joy and sadness, gift and loss. The good life does not try to separate these blessings from one another, preferring one over against the other. The good life recognizes that they are inseparable. To be thankful for one, we must be thankful for all.

The contrasts within life produce a beautiful tapestry. If you lose one color in a tapestry, all the other colors are dulled by that loss. And if you lose an affect in life, then all the other affects will be dulled as well. Spiritual wealth relies on both the light and the darkness.

I hope that you, too, have or had a good mother. If so, then you can learn something about God from her. As you negotiate your own life, I pray that you will rejoice much, and grieve much, because that means that you will have loved much. Godspeed you.