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But they did not understand.

March 19, 2024

Photo courtesy of lumoproject.com

2 Samuel 7:4, 8-16  |  Romans 4:13-18  |  Luke 2:41-52  |  Psalm 89:1-29

Luke’s New Testament words today bring to my mind the relationship between parents and children and the sometimes-fraught nature of them when they do not understand each other. Luke does a decent job of storytelling here, giving us the facts of 12-year-old Jesus disappearing on his parents, but I think he underplays the heart-in-the-mouth terror a parent feels when a child is missing and has a 24-hour lead.

I personally can’t quite imagine breathing for three days in that state of terror and anxiety. I even have a hard time watching movies where children are even temporarily missing. My children, now adults, were especially beautiful as young beings. I called them poster children for Guatemalan adoption. A few times my husband and I took them to New York City for Christmas, and I still remember 25 years later the special lock grip I devised to hold on to my 3-year-old Sofia, turning her tiny little wrist white with my anxiety that she could be ripped away from me in a second.

But I can picture Jesus’ 12-year-old beautiful confused face when confronted by his mother once finally found, “What, me?? I didn’t do anything, for I am in my Father’s house.”  The innocence of the Spirit being held to a higher authority than an earthly one.

I have had much love, and much misunderstanding, between my children and myself. I like to say that God gave my very extroverted self a little wink when He sent me not one, but two introverts for children. I was raised in an authoritarian patriarchal household in the 1950’s. Never abuse, but lots of parental yelling and demands. “You do it because I said so!!” And while this never worked for me as a child let alone teenager, I of course revert to this mode under stress with my children. Still. To this day. In less obvious phrasing. My awareness is raised, but those generational patterns are like Gorilla Glue!!

I have to constantly remind myself that those children have their own authority, their own callings, and that I, as a parent, am simply borrowing them from God for the simple task of loving them. As a postulant and seminarian of Fr. Richard Rohr’s, I know God as Love and that I, my children and all beings are fully integrated and held in Her universe. My daily meditation mantra is, “not my will, but Thine.” Applying this in human-to-human relationships, parent to child relationships, life on earth relationships, is my ongoing task.  

When there is a calling from beyond earthly bonds, listen. And if that calling comes to your child, know you are blessed.

Judith Sutphen