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In Memory of Mom: The Day Jesus Told Mary to Go to Hell

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Now, you may be thinking that I’m just trying to hook you in with a provocative title — and you would be partially right. But I hope you’ll read on.

My mother would have been 93 today if she was still alive. And I would have visited her gravesite in Statesville, but I can never find her stone in that massive sea. So I thought I would honor her this way. She gave me much and there was much that I needed that she never gave me. But she always wanted me to pursue my dreams. What better gift can a child receive than that?

Most of us owe a lot to our mothers for their caring and for their suffering, for bringing us into the world, and so much more. When I think of Jesus’ mother, Mary, I suspect that Jesus owed her more than most. It could not have been easy raising the Son of God. Freud didn’t do mothers any favors by shining a light on how crucial the first few months and years of life are for the fragile psyches of children. But Mary knew it 1900 years earlier. Wouldn’t you try to be the most perfect mother in the world, knowing how much was riding on it, as Mary must have known? She deserves all of the veneration, and then some, as seen in the hundreds, if not thousands, of beautiful paintings and sculptures of Madonna and Child.

Even with all that we owe our mothers, however, they are not to be worshipped. We owe them a return on their investment of love, for sure. But we don’t owe them our lives.

Obviously, Jesus did not say the words, “Mom, go to hell.” But that was the gist of what he said to her one day, if we take the scripture literally, as well as symbolically. Jesus was out healing and teaching, and it had been a long day, maybe without time to eat or drink or rest. The crowds were immense. People of every walk in life, rich and poor, were drawn to Jesus by his message and by his personality — he was someone that could be trusted. He walked the talk, and they loved him. But Mary led Jesus’s siblings on a different mission that day — they wanted to save him. Save him from what, you may ask? Well, save Jesus from himself, evidently. They were afraid that Jesus was losing his mind — that he was “beside of himself,” in the Greek translation of the text (Mark 3:32-35). These days, we would be more blunt: he’s insane, or he’s lost his mind, or he’s gone crazy.

Because of the crowds, though, Mary could not reach her son. So word was passed from one pilgrim to another, and finally, word got to Jesus: “Your mother and brothers are outside.”

Jesus, at this point, might have said something deferential, like, “Tell my mother I’ll be home for supper,” or “Let’s catch up with each other on the Sabbath — I’m just fine. Don’t worry.” But no, Jesus was a bit of smart ass. What he said exactly was this — a riddle. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Ouch! Not what a worried mother would want to hear just then. And then, this — driving a stake deeper into Mary’s heart: “Here (pointing to the crowd) are my mother and brothers.” Double ouch!

I know some mothers and you do too, I’m sure, that if their sons or daughters talked to them that way, there would be words — and not nice ones — exchanged. I’ve seen some mothers sulk for days for much less, and I’ve seen some mothers threaten their sons or daughters with all sorts of retaliation for such disrespectful speeches. And Jesus said this in public. Was that any way to talk to the Mother of God?

Of course, Jesus wasn’t meaning Mary any disrespect, but he clearly was keeping his biological family responsibilities squarely in proportion to his spiritual family responsibilities. It’s a good lesson to us, because we sometimes confuse the two. Sometimes, even, our biological families and our spiritual families cannot co-exist. It can be a problem that way.

My own son, when he was 21, told me to go to hell. I didn’t like it, but I knew we had come to a point in our relationship, where it was time to put me in my place. I had become overbearing, implying that I didn’t trust him and his decision-making. And it was true — in that moment, I didn’t. The father part of me was terribly hurt and upset at being told where to go; but the therapist in me was silently cheering him on. He was well on his way to finding himself, and he needed, for awhile, to go his own way.

Eventually, we repaired the breach, and I’m so proud of who he became and is still becoming. It’s the privilege of a lifetime to watch our sons and daughters grow and develop into sensitive, caring, passionate human beings who are making the planet a better place to live.

As Jesus hung on the Cross, breathing his last, his mind was clear enough to ask one of the disciples to look after Mary when he was gone. He loved her and she loved Jesus. And we who follow him are so much better for it — for the way they clarified their relationship with each other and with us. We are Jesus’s “mothers and brothers” and sisters and fathers and sons and daughters and uncles and aunts. We who follow the way of Jesus are one universal family.

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    Dreamwork: Training the Inner Puppy

    puppy“I have a new, blond puppy. She is adorable! I place her gently on the floor, and she very quickly makes her first, tiny poop. She looks proud of herself, and so am I. But now comes the training. I try to make sure to remember that she needs to be taken outside relatively frequently so that she learns where to do her business — I don’t want my cute new friend to become a nuisance because she soils and spoils my home. It’s her new home too. But this training thing is exhausting!”

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    As I worked with this recent dream, it occurred to me what an excellent image it is for the challenge and the benefit of doing dreamwork — or soulwork, for that matter.

    Every morning is actually an opportunity for something “new” to be discovered. The unconscious offers up something for the ego to either discover for the first time, or it offers something that we may have forgotten; so it needs to be rediscovered by the ego and, thereby, integrated into consciousness. But it does take discipline.

    In his book, A Spirituality of Living, Henri Nouwen says this about the importance of discipline: “If we want to be disciples of Jesus, we have to live a disciplined life,” Nouwen asserts. “In the spiritual life, discipline requires conscious effort to keep every area in life from being filled up. It means creating space in our life for God to act and speak.”

    When we get up in the morning, we may remember a dream from the night before. If it’s message for us is not to fall back into unconsciousness, we then need to make space to both write the dream down in our dream journals, while also creating enough space at some point in our busy days to actually do the work — to go back into the dream to listen to the images and symbols and associations that reverberate in our souls as they seek a place in our lives and in our relationships with God and with others.

    The “inner puppy” in my dream has some “good shit” (sorry — I just couldn’t find a better metaphor). But if our own instinctual energies are to be creatively channelled, rather than spoiling our lives through impulsive or compulsive behaviors, we need to literally “train” these instinctual energies — loveable and warm and cuddly and adorable as puppies can be, they can either ruin a home or make it a wonderful place to be. It’s all in the relationship between master and young puppy.

    When Sam, my rescue dog, came into my home, he was 7 years old and housebroken. But I took time to read and to learn more about dog psychology. We spent hours and hours alone together, usually an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. During this time, I gave up some things I cherished, such as riding by bicycle and that second cup of coffee, because I felt like this time between me and Sam would shape the rest of our lives together and enhance the joy of dog ownership. So, I placed a bag of hot dog bites in a plastic baggy, as Sam and I headed out into whatever weather visited us each day. Rain or shine, warm or cold, off we would go. During our routine, at least 20 minutes was devoted to training Sam in the usual exercises: sit, stay, lay down, and come. Work was slow, but oh so rewarding. Sam loved the hot dogs, of course; but I perceived that we both felt the warm, glad glow of a relationship that gave our lives deepened meaning and purpose.

    I can’t think of a better image than this intimate relationship between master and dog for the joys and amazing inner journey of dreamwork. Yes, discipline is involved. We create space for our dreams and for the work it takes to notice our paths of individuation. And this work pays off, in small and great ways, as we feel more and more alive and as we notice the subtle hand of God shaping us and guiding our lives.

    Amen

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    Unlock the Meaning in Your Dreams: Program Helps People Connect to God

    John RoweRev. Dr. John Rowe will lead an introductory workshop called “Dreamwork: God’s Forgotten Language” 7-9 p.m. Jan. 24 at the Davidson UMC Chapel, 233 S. Main St., Davidson. The workshop is free and open to everyone, and participants who want to learn more about Dreamwork can enroll in an eight-week study course and join a new Dreamwork small group that will being after the course. To register for the workshop or for information, call the Davidson UMC Counseling Center at 704-892-6135 or email to John Rowe at jrowe@davidsonumc.org. Child care is available if requested by Jan. 20. The idea that God speaks to people through dreams hearkens back to stories in the Bible’s Old Testament that were recorded thousands of years ago.

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    In the past decade, the practice of connecting with God through dreams has seen a renaissance, as more people have become interested in analyzing their dreams as a spiritual discipline.

    “In the early church, dreams were considered to be one of the best ways that God was trying to tell you about your life,” said John Rowe, director of Davidson United Methodist Church’s counseling center.

    For a year, Rowe has led a group of about nine people who meet twice a month to help each other find meaning in their dreams. He said that, within churches in the Southeast, he has seen a growing interest in dreams.

    Connecting dreams and spirituality went out of vogue around the fifth century, when dreams became suspect as church leaders began preferring people to learn about God through the teaching of orthodox dogma and belief, Rowe said.

    The practice revived in the early 1900s with Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung’s theories of “individuation,” or the idea that people are born with an “authentic self” that people repress in favor of a “public face” they believe will be more acceptable to others.

    Accessing dreams connects people with the authentic self in the subconscious, Rowe said, allowing them to understand essential aspects of themselves.

    “People who are spiritual assume the authentic self can only come from God, and to know God is to know your authentic self deeply and (to know) the direction God is leading you in your life,” Rowe said.

    Rowe’s small group was founded out of a workshop and a subsequent in-depth class that provided participants with tools to help each other interpret their dreams.

    Each small group meeting begins with prayer or meditation. The facilitator will sometimes give a short talk or lecture, and then group members share details of recent dreams.

    “We use techniques we’ve studied, and we begin working with the dream and give the dream back to the person at the end of our work to see what sort of insights they have from the Dreamwork,” Rowe said.

    The group often works on three or four dreams each session. Usually, Rowe said, people find their dreams bewildering and can’t make sense of them.

    “I’ve rarely heard of a dream that didn’t sound crazy,” Rowe said. “But as the group begins to work with the tools they’ve been taught to use, it’s incredible that something that can be so crazy-sounding can unfold in a deep and meaningful way for people.”

    He encourages people to keep a journal, pen and flashlight by their bed to write down dreams, which often quickly are forgotten. The more people get in the practice of writing down dreams, often the better they remember them, he said.

    Rowe said the Dreamwork group is devoted to meeting together, and friendships have formed as people have talked about their dreams and their lives.

    “It really is a mixture of fun and is deeply meaningful,” Rowe said. “You can’t talk about a dream usually without a lot of laughter.”

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    Marty Minchin is a freelance writer for Lake Norman News. Have a story idea for Marty? Email her at martyminchin@gmail.com.