SOME HAVE RECENTLY ASKED ME WHY I used the Title MOTHER or ELDER MOTHER as oppossed to SISTER or no title at all. JUST FOR CONTEXT I think you should know that I spent part of my formative years in a church which preached what I have come to call "false humility". They told people to look at the ground and to address one another as brother and sister but they would gossip behind your back and stab you in the back just the same. To me that is a coward, not a humble person. I ended up leaving this group of hypocrites. So did my parents especially because they tried to encourage my stepmother to put my father down because he was a brilliant man who knew 28 languages and because he was not an "ethnic" Mennonite but then they all showed up and tried to cry as if they loved him at his funeral.
I THINK THAT we all have and need a healthy ego to be a CHILD OF GOD in my opinion and in my belief system. We need to respect the persons in leadership in our lives: HONOR YOUR FATHER & MOTHER. HONOR YOUR BROTHER & SISTER.
I consider respect for one another to be important. Ego is ego and title is position not as in hierarchy but as in responsibility. It might just be semantics or difference in culture but I guess I believe in self-esteem and self-respect as a sign of mental and spiritual health.
I firmly believe that a title doesn't ask someone to worship me. It simply asks someone to respect me and all the responsibility that I have been asked to shoulder based on the gifts God has given me to be a good steward of. There is , in my "humble" opinion, a huge difference between a healthy and unhealthy ego...between hierarchy and responsibility.
IT'S NOT ALWAYS ONE OR THE OTHER...there just might be another middle option.
HUMBLE PIE? THINK I WILL...have a slice AND enjoy for God's sake (shoo fly is my FAV) !
Peace to All,
MOM Nanhi.
