This day could easily collapse into sentimentality. The Lesson is about sheep and shepherds. And, in the U.S., it is Mother’s day. Mother and sheep and shepherds-these are among the favorite themes of bad poetry and maudlin piety. Yet the fear of sentimentality must not deter us from coming to terms with the power of the imagery associated with such a day. The image of motherhood remains one of the most elemental in all our experience. Some feminists argue that the mystique of motherhood should be demythologized because it imposes restrictions on the various ways in which women may find fulfillment. Yet, while criticizing the mystique, we dare not abandon the mystery.
Neither test tube babies nor any other modern scientific “breakthrough” can be substituted for the inexhaustible mystery of the interdependence in the parent-child relationship. From earliest human history, people facing the problems of life have looked for security in some kind of “return” to this relationship:
Backward, turn backward, 0 Time…
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