Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, produced one session I caught which commanded my attention. In a nutshell he condensed the truth about motherhood.  Not all mothers are: "The most beautiful woman in the world."

The essentials of the story are the little child who has lost his mother and has gone to all the authorities to help find her.  He travels far and wide and asks every woman, "Are you my mother?"  He finds only disappointment in his search.  Compounding his journey is that everyone he asks for help wants to know what she looks like.  His answer is that: "She is the most beautiful woman in the world."

If you remember much about the Muppets you know they are not the most beautiful puppet creations.  They are pretty good, made mostly out of cloth and are limited to hand puppetry.  But the little motherless Muppet is looking for the "Most beautiful mother in the world."  I can't remember much about this story other than the details I have just given nor the ending.  But his mother is his mother and TO HIM, she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

That is the lesson of MOTHER'S DAY.  Our mothers are our models for our creators from whose flesh we come.  They range from little girls who are forced into marriage or raped and become mothers at a too young age to 60 year old surrogates who are on the wrong side of menses.  All of them produce life.  But not all of them adopt and make it their own - the role of motherhood.

We hear of the sad and pitiful stories of women who kill their children or who twist and ruin their lives in some unimaginable ways.  Thank goodness that most mothers try their best in the impossible job of working at a job while taking care of a family (too many times sans a male presence) and teaching how to deal with the world to developing children.

Being a mother is not only one of the hardest jobs in the world but one of the most important, if not THE most important in the world.  We take sustenance from them, instruction from them, and guidance away from the pitfalls that are everywhere. We seek and bask in their approval when we follow the right path they lay out for us. We certainly should HONOR our mothers.

My thoughts about "mothers" are that I automatically transfer my honor and devotion from her to ALL women.  They are all potentially mothers and we have done a very poor job in preparing MEN in how to treat and protect them.