Mothering the systems we are a part of

Maria Shriver, in her book "I've Been Thinking ... Reflections, Prayers and Meditations for a Meaningful Life" writes our world is yearning to be mothered; we need mothering on a large scale.

"All of the world's children -- young and old -- are looking to be loved, accepted, nurtured, soothed and cared for by Mother energy," she writes. "Really good mothers make really good leaders because they nurture, they build a solid team, they see your potential, and they build on your strengths, not on your fears. They inspire you, they guide you, and they ask of you. Plus, they're really strong.

" ... May we all realize that mothering is a presidential-level task that, done right, can lead a family, a nation, or a world to fulfill its highest potential."

This led me to wonder: How can we mother the world? How can we mother the systems we are a part of, love them so as to transform them into ways of being that do not oppress, but rather, are just for everyone? How do we mother our school and prison and housing systems, our health care and religious and economic systems? How do we -- men and women alike -- care for these systems in ways that draw out what is naturally good about them and provide resources that then allow the systems to flourish beyond our selves?

How do we help these systems leave behind their bad behavior because they are free to realize they are seen and do not have to act out to get our attention; that this is not the truth of who they are? How do we not merely fix what is broken, but, rather, usher new, liberated life from it?

When my students and I are looking at writing in an effort to coax what the writing truly wants to be from it -- a process called editing -- we use language that speaks about what is already working well within the piece and what could be made stronger. We don't think in dichotomous terms of bad/good, because that allows us to dismiss something too easily.

Instead, we approach the writing as if what is before us is a starting point, a draft, material presented to us to work with. All writing, we believe, can be made stronger. We believe in the fundamental goodness of it -- there is a truth within it, something we can take and work with to shape into a stronger piece that more clearly states its truth. We try to understand why an aspect is working well and why another one isn't.

Teaching is mothering and editing is mothering and writing is mothering. How can we transfer this way of being and thinking to each realm we know about, so it is life-giving for everyone?

In Christopher West's "Into the Heart," a teaching on Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body, the two teach that men, through their bodies, serve to remember and remind us of our original solitude, our unbroken union with God in the garden. Women, through their bodies, represent humanity's openness to God, an ability to receive.

This is why, they teach, the serpent approached Eve when tempting with the fruit of the tree: because she represented openness to God, if that openness could be fooled into distrusting God, could be tricked into believing God was not for her, then that openness would close to protect itself from what it perceived as a cruel master, a threat. And if humanity closed itself to God, then, to quote Shakespeare in "Othello," chaos could come again. And so our call as both men and women which mothers so aptly remind us of, is to allow ourselves to be open. To God. To each other. To love.

And so, in mothering our world, we must love the systems we are a part of, and love them too tenderly to let them stay broken. Our love must animate us to believe in them, and to believe in the power of our own love to transform them. And most deeply of all, we must love the people these systems, at their most altruistic, seek to serve. We must work for each other.

Love shines on fear and comes alongside it, giving itself to it until fear is no more. Love is a steady presence, a gift mothers give their children. Let us do the hard work of rethinking the systems we live within, allowing ourselves to be open to receive love so we can let it pass through us into the world.