This past weekend, Mother’s Day brought up any number of emotions for so many of us. Perhaps joy, maybe grief or disappointment, perhaps hope. I led the morning service and gave the sermon at the North Short Unitarian Church outside Chicago, and offered the following words for mothers and the other nurturers in our lives.

It’s the “words-in-practice” part of “words with care,” if you will: words used in the service of care.

I also offered a blessing that morning, and posted a variation of these words on Twitter. Even though it’s a few days late, it’s always a good time to engage in words of care, so I offer the same now on the blog. Who knows what thoughts or feelings you may bring to this moment?

On this day set aside just over a century ago to recognize those who mother and who nurture, we ask that so many blessings open like blossoms:

For those who will soon become mothers, or who have recently become mothers, let today bring a blessing.

For those whose mothers who love, accept, and delight in their children, no matter who or what they are or become, let today bring a blessing.

For those whose mothers are far away, but whose love stretches close, let today bring a blessing.

For those who have been betrayed or violated by the ones who should have nurtured us instead, let today bring a blessing.

For those who have lost the ones who mothered them, we hold you in our hearts, remembering all the mothers who have passed beyond this life. For them and the ones left behind, let today bring a blessing.

For mothers whose souls are weary with the messiness of parenting, let today bring a blessing.

For mothers whose souls delight at the promise they see growing before their eyes, let today bring a blessing.

For those who may not look as we expect a carer to look: for step-parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, queer and trans parents, and stay-at-home dad-parents: let today bring a blessing.

For those who would be mothers, of any age or gender, but who have not found this hope fulfilled in their lives, let today bring a blessing.

For those who have become grandparents, adding the joy of loving a new generation to a lifetime of parenting, let today bring a blessing.

Let today bring a blessing for the communities of care that surround us and nurture us, invisible like the fragrance of roses, but no less valued. And let today bring a blessing, finally, to the lovely, threatened Earth which is Mother to us all.

*with thanks to this Mother’s Day Blessing Litany for the format of these words for mothers and other nurturers.