Scotch College

A beautiful Scotch moment

The new Mother and Son sculpture will remind generations of Scotch boys never to take for granted the contribution of women to the richness of their lives.

For me, one of the loveliest moments at Scotch takes place at the Valedictory Dinner. It is that moment when Scotch mums are invited on to the dance floor by their sons.

As a mere male I can only imagine what it must be like to give birth. Most of my life I have been glad that that is the case. I was surprised a couple of years ago when a male colleague candidly expressed envy of his wife after she gave birth to their first child.

There was never any doubt in my mind that giving birth creates a unique bond between the mother and child. After all, the Bible asks the question, ‘Can a mother forget the child she nursed?’ The clear implication is that a mother forgetting her child would be the ultimate in memory loss; nothing could rival it. Recently, tears streaming down her face, an elderly woman told me about a friend who asked her granddaughter: ‘Do I have children? Are you one of my children?’ Indeed a tragedy.

The role of mothers is too easily taken for granted. Marilyn Waring wrote a book called Counting for Nothing. It is about the way in which the work of women does not register in the national economies. It is work done for the love of family and friends. We are immensely poorer if we ignore the contribution of women and the feminine perspective.

Although the Bible comes from a strongly patriarchal culture, I always like to remind the boys that the first image of God in the Bible is feminine, and that Jesus, in his parables, invites us to consider God as a housewife, as well as shepherd and father (in Luke 15).

The (so-called) Gospel of Thomas is one of those early documents excluded from the New Testament. It is actually a short list of sayings, some of which parallel known sayings of Jesus. However, its attitude to women is powerfully typical of first century males, but is totally contrary to the whole tone of all we know about Jesus. Thomas concludes at verse 114 (although some scholars argue this is a later addition), the text of which reads: ‘Simon Peter said to him, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.” Jesus said: “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” ’

This shocking comment is so far removed from the attitude of Jesus towards women as it is revealed in the New Testament, that it is reason enough why ‘Thomas’ was not regarded as Holy Scripture, which, following Jesus’ teaching, seeded a transformation in cultural attitudes.

Intriguingly, the first word for God in the Bible is elohim. This Hebrew name for monotheistic Israel’s one true God is plural. This mystery, unanswered in the Hebrew Scriptures, is opened up by Christians with the coining of a new word to comprehend the complexity of the uncreated deity. That word is Trinity. For Christians, the one true God is plural.

This is explored by contemporary feminist theologian Catherine LaCugna in her beautiful book God For Us. God is relational; both male and female are needed to represent God. In Genesis 1 it is the man and the woman who bear the divine image. Perichoresis is the Greek word that beautifully describes the relationship. Choreography comes from the same Greek word. The relationship is a dance.

My own children introduced me to U2 and Sting back in the ’80s, and I am always moved by their hauntingly beautiful songs of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. Listen again to U2 singing Mothers of the Disappeared and Sting singing They Dance Alone.

These poignant songs for the mothers and grandmothers who meet in the Plaza de Mayo in central Buenos Aires create a powerful sense of the grief experienced by these women, whose children disappeared without just cause or explanation. A similar helplessness and grief must have been felt here by thousands of indigenous women who were the mothers of the ‘stolen generation’.

I hope that generations of Scotch Collegians walking past the newly unveiled statue in Old Scotch Square will think about their mothers, thank God for them, and cherish anew the women in their lives. GS

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The Scotch Family invites you to the

14th Annual
Prayer Breakfast

Our special guest is

DR PHILIP FREIER,

Archbishop of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne

In 2007 The Australian ran a lengthy article which included the following about Philip Freier:

“his bearing is modest, inward, almost shy. His cast of mind is cerebral, yet he is prone to flights of outrageous humour, and seems almost constantly struck by the delightful incongruities of the modern world. He is a man of well-organised intellect; but before that, and before all, a being of almost mystic temperament, caught in the web of God’s grace. He is very far, in short, from being a conventional prince of the Anglican church … Freier offers Australia’s Anglicans a new kind of Christian leadership, informed not only by the intuitive experiences of his own faith, but by the moral dilemmas he has come face to face with during his northern years, and by the twisting strands of his own biography … he has a form of humility one encounters rarely in the modern world: it comes from a constancy of prayer. Daily, he celebrates the Eucharist in a personal chapel in his home: and this austere discipline lends him the striking air of a ‘priest-bishop,’ rather than a modern church administrator.”

Friday, 3 April 2009
6.45 am for 7.00 am
Cardinal Pavilion, Scotch College Melbourne
Bookings and enquiries to Kate Paterson 9810 4122 or
kate.paterson@scotch.vic.edu.au