Although she has been gone for nearly five years, I cannot help but think of my mother on this day, year after year after year:  it's her birthday.  I found fresh poignancy in the day this year when a few days ago I heard John Lennon's "Mother."  For those who have not heard the song, Lennon sings of the mother and father whom he always wanted but, as he puts it in the song, were never there for him.  They didn't "have" him.
     Would we all wish for parents who are there for us, who "have" us, who love us as we wish them to love us.  In contrast to Lennon, I experienced this love in full, and more, in the love of my parents, my mother and father.  I really needed nothing more from them, for in their love they gave me everything I could possibly want and need.  I left home believing that the world was a good place, that people were decent beings, that love reigned in the universe.  Thanks indeed, Mom and Dad, thanks always and forevermore. I'll never be able to repay everything you did for me
     I hope that all of us find this kind of love, too.  Whether it's from our parents or others, I hope that we all come to see the fullness and presence of love in the cosmos, and enjoy and appreciate its every expression on our behalf.  I hope that we all know love as something that always wants us.
     Like the love of God.  Thank goodness for a loving God.