Lovingkindness 5

            She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” (Proverbs 31:26-29)

Two days ago, we say the woman of lovingkindness as a charitable capitalist. Today, she is a wise, attentive mother: manager, disciplinarian, teacher, She’s not the sort to put her baby in a stroller and go shop at the local mall for hours, or put her kids in front of a TV so she doesn’t have to pay attention to them. She doesn’t sit at home and watch the soaps or move the furniture, so her husband thinks she cleaned when she didn’t. She trains her children and her servants so that they, too, and be competent managers. That’s what “watching over” things means. That’s what faithful instruction is all about.

On this day after Mother’s Day (since I’m writing this on Mother’s Day) I have to think about my mother in this regard. She tried. She worked full-time from when I was five until I was out of college. When I got home from school, I called her – whether or not that was the rule, I did it, and she would tell me what needed to be done to start the evening’s meal or something else I should do.  She also guided me in terms of music, introducing me to classical and (though I didn’t realize it until a few years ago) jazz. Somehow, she managed to manage the household with as many as four other people living here, in a way that I can’t seem to with only myself. Oddly while I know that she cleaned the house better than I do, I don’t remember her cleaning. Watching over that affairs of the household and faithful instruction went on all the time in the background – even  as cancer and other ailments took her life.  

These past few days have looked at lovingkindness, not as some sentimentally gushy thing, but as a difficult loan of strength to others that goes above and beyond what is socially required for the benefit of the other.