VICTORY OF THE MOTHERS [R, 3-10-22]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

Recently I have seen a photo of a train station in Poland, where Polish mothers have left a line of baby strollers for arriving Ukrainian refugee mothers. Unknown mothers understanding the plight of other unknown mothers. Just a simple little thing to make their desperate refugee life a little easier. It is an endearing and heart-rending picture.

It makes me wonder if Egyptian mothers did a similar thing for Mary when she had to flee her country to escape a narcissistic megalomaniac who was bent on killing not only her son but all the other little boys under age two in his nation, just to hang onto his power, without any concern for the agony he was causing others. [Matthew 2:13-18.]

They didn’t have strollers, of course, and there were no instant forms of communication, but there was a large Jewish population in Egypt. They would have heard about Herod’s plans. Knowing that refugee mothers were coming with their children, perhaps they left reed baskets at oases. Or water skins. I hope so. I think so. It is what mothers have been doing for other mothers for as long as there have been babies, and as long as there have been men who are desperate for outward power, to cover up their inward weaknesses.

We know very little of Jesus until he was 30 or so. Imagine how many little acts of kindness other mothers must have done for Mary along the way. It may not take a village to raise a child, but it takes a lot of acts of kindness, one mother to another, some known, some anonymous. Acts that are not chronicled in the bible, not noted on a web site, not prattled on a podcast. Unknown acts from one mother to another, so that all can get their children raised up…

…up to where some can be saviors, and some can be destroyers.

Yes, there were other mothers who helped Vladimir Putin’s mother, too, shared some turnips or some rubles, or when things got bad enough, some vodka.

Many people claim that Ukraine will win this war. Because it should. That is the way the story is supposed to come out. But what does winning mean? Think of how many lives, how much property, how many works of art, how much culture, how much trust is being destroyed. Perhaps when it is “over,” Ukraine will continue as a free, democratic nation. Yes, that will be a victory. But a “broken hallelujah.”

I am not as optimistic. Russia is so large, and has so many resources, and it has a soulless dictator who has a lot of “face” at stake. That is the definition of “might makes right.”

But even if Ukraine is subjugated as a vassal state of Russia, Putin can’t win, either. Dictators never do. There are always too many mothers who are willing to leave a stroller for the next refugee mother who comes along.

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com