Mom Was There

We wore red stoles for my installation yesterday which is the traditional color for clergy installations and ordinations.  But under my red stole, I wore the clergy tartan stole my mother made me when I was ordained.  I was told that Scottish clergy wore that particular tartan because in times of war in the Highlands, it marked the clergy as neutral.

I wanted my mom there yesterday but she died almost 30 years ago.  So I wore the stole she made.

After lunch which was after morning worship and the installation service, a woman I’d never seen before came up to me and handed me three photographs of my mother.  “You don’t know me, ” the woman said, “but I was a friend of your mother and these are from a trip we took to Wrightsville Beach when we were teenagers.  I found them over the weekend and thought you might like them for a late Mother’s Day.”

Yesterday was so meaningful. But what made it miraculous was that my mom got to be there too.