“‘Honor your Father and your mother,’ says the Fifth Commandment (Exodus 20:12). Honor them for having taken care of you before you were old enough to take care of yourself.” —Frederick Buechner.
Buechner reminds us of the Fifth Commandment: to honor our parents. He explains that we are to honor them because they loved us and cared for us.
I sat with a group of friends last week and we all spontaneously started talking about scars we received from our parents, particularly our mothers. Some of us have been abused or neglected by our parents. Some did not receive the love they had hoped for from their parents. Some had parents who never grew up to be the adults and mentors that a child needed for protection. Buechner reminds us that our parents also had scars. Often they were doing the best they could with what they knew. He also reminds us that we should always be grateful to them for giving us the gift of life. Our experience also was that there were always adults in our lives who could be mentors for us when our parents were not able to do so. Some of the group were actually doing this now for other children or adults.
We then wondered what our children would say about us—thinking of the scars we may have given them, due to our own imperfections. Our prayers become that we can still make living amends for the harm we have done; and that we will be able to reverse some of the behavior we have inherited, while also honoring the richness of our heritage.
Joanna. Joannaseibert.com
Book Signing Wordsworth Books
Saturday, November 2, 2019 1 to 3 pm
Just in time for the holidays
A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany
The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter
Both are $18. Money from sale of the books goes to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in
The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast