Sunday 11 March 2018

Othering Sunday

I just gave up in the end. By the time the list of people who I was worried might find this day difficult reached 42 different categories, I gave up on its traditional form.

Not to mention the smug trolling of Bertrand on the Beaker Yammer, who repeatedly asked the question "All this fuss about Mothers' Day - when will we get a Fathers' Day?" despite being told it will be 17 June.

So we decided to ignore the whole thing, and go with "Othering Sunday". On this new interpretation of the 4th Sunday in Lent, we think especially of those who are different to us. And how they can't be trusted. I'm not saying it's a particularly Christian attitude. But do you know what, it's easier.



Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.

From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.

3 comments :

  1. You can (if you are not a mother) try to explain that it really doesn't offend you not to take one, since you aren't a mother, and are OK with that fact. Give the flowers to the actual mothers instead. The response is "But surely you have or had a mother, or a grandmother, or someone who treated you in a motherly way, or you treated someone in a motherly way..." It's easier to say nothing, smile politely, and take the flower.

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  2. Some of us lost our mothers in early life and never afterwards experienced a Mothers Love, particularly in care, where hard knocks, not compassionate love, didn't feature and corporal punishment was used to ensure compliance. No wonder we feel that the smugness that surrounds Mothers Day, with it's commercialisation of Mothering Sunday is something that we detest.

    Yes, celebrate Mother Church and Celebrate God as both our Mother and Father and human mothers who love and care for their off spring, but don't expect everyone to be comfortable with the whole circus that surrounds it.

    As for the Beakder Folk, I suspect that the Arch Druid isn't an example of motherly love, more a dictator in a skirt, who deters anyone from love, in case she becomes emotionally vulnerable.

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  3. Like all priestesses ...

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