She Is His Mother – Sunday, May 08,1983
We turn again to thoughts of mother with memories of home and infancy. We have learned the heavenly lesson which has waited patiently for us, biding its time, until we could understand that a mother’s love is the most constant and the most unconditional human affection that this life has to offer.
It is, at once, irrational and divine, defying the analysis of logic and science. It is the one gift among all God’s rewards which is offered without condition or stipulation; it is a mother’s love.
Picture, if you can, this scene: the medium security visiting room of a large American prison, with drab gray walls, folding chairs, and silent well-armed guards. There, too, await the Sunday visitors—friends, wives, acquaintances—all waiting as they have waited many times before, as each prisoner is summoned from his cell to be properly accounted for, and brought in turn for this brief meeting, this short-lived interlude between the endless moments we call a week.
Among these guests this day, these faithful guests, sits a graying woman. A large and wondrous woman, waiting patiently, calmly reserving one chair near her side.
We see them enter one by one, this hapless file of hardened criminals, crafty counterfeiters, thieves and outcasts, some mere boys, while others show the lines of age.
We watch with her as he appears. We note the flippant nature of his amble and surmise the scorn which lies not too distant from his lips. To us, his is a brutal, savage face.
But to her, to her who brought the infant into being, who stood above the crib and proudly rocked the newborn boy, whose lullabies for him have never ceased though time and circumstances have argued for his guilt, to her the face is sweet and soft. Regardless of the crime or evidence, to her he will always have a form of innocence. There is no infamy or callous deed with which to alter her unchanging love. And even to the hour of her death his name will still be held in reverence.
For whatever else he is, he is her son. And she is his mother.
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May 08, 1983
Broadcast Number 2,803