The Good News of the Belly Button

May 10 - Mother's Day - Live Stream

The belly button is the physical reminder that we are not primarily isolated individuals, but we all begin as parts of a family. Mother’s Day, I want to propose today, is a day for navel gazing!

The constant theme of Scripture is that the well-being of our parents and the next generation is spiritually connected to our own. We are bound together in what has been called a “intergenerational covenant.” It is a covenant because it is a sacred responsibility. It is intergenerational because it involves parents caring for their children in growing years, and those children then caring for their parents when they are elderly. Even those who don’t have biological children of their own are part of this intergenerational covenant, because we all have responsibilities for the children in our community. “It takes a whole village to raise a child,” the old African saying goes, and we are all part of such a village.