No parcels to do myself meant that i had done stuff with the kids, jiggled the very cute Baby-Flower for a while (up to and including putting her down for a nap which was rather lovely because she didn’t require me to lie down and feed her for 30 minutes first… if i ever do have another, i think i might bottlefeed!) and given the house a (very) cursory tidy up by 12pm, plus sit and have a cuppa with a friend 🙂
Felt very civilised.
Fran was emersed in EC, Maddy in Studydog, Amelie in playing with Josie. Then a present from Auntie Greer arrived, bringing enormous delight to the (still having her) birthday girl and not much else happened until after lunch. Had a long chat with Mummy-Flower about HE, as she is half considering it and then it was time to rush about making lunch and so on.
Somewhere in all that we discovered our borax snowflake crystals had all grown beautifully. So, so pretty, so sparkly, so CRYSTALLY and such and excelelnt illustration of why not to have another child; we did them in 2 batches, a pot with 3 snowflakes in and a pot with 2 in – and the ones that only had 2 grew bigger becasue they didn’t have to share their borax so much! Even the kids spotted that 😉
Spent a very enjoyable afternoon with Hannah and her lot; the girls played, the boy looked mildly affronted at the lack of things with wheels and we chatted about all sorts of things from religion, to HE to.. well… lots anyway 🙂 Very enjoyable but although i’ve pontificated all afternoon on aspects of it, i now can’t stop yawning so i won’t blog it very well.
The crux of it though, i think, is am i going to carry on searching for a truth to follow, when it might be no more than a doctrine of someone elses making, or am i going to concentrate on trying to instill love, tolerance, thoughtfulness, community spirit, gentleness, strength of mind, morality and humanity of spirit in my children?
Those things, for me, are what the human embodiment of a religion should be. For me, i see too much of something very different in it all, religion twisted to suit need, creating divides, shutting people in, shutting them out, bringing down judgement of worthiness, a them and us mentality that creates wrath and hurt. And it’s easy to say “well they aren’t true x, y or z’s” b ut the reality is, they believe they are and if you face the reality that they see their stance as right, it becomes hard for me to see who to follow, who to trust, who to risk being led by. If there is a true path and i meet only people 1 step to the left or right of it, can i trust that they are worth following, or as they as far off as the people who are already forging their own motorway under the same name, people who have stepped away 20 paces from that path?
I don’t want my children to grow up without faith, but i wonder if faith in humanity might be just as relevant. I don’t want to be seen as unworthy for heaven, unworthy or too unclean to care for others, too lax to deserve love. I’ve seen all these things in religion as i’ve grown up, yet until recently, i’ve never seen religion shine out of people and having met people who i do see living love and openness and genuine faith, while i rather envy that, i wonder more how many paths there are, than which is the right one.
I don’t have any regrets about how we live our lives here; i’ve got plenty of time for a heritage of genuine happiness, time for thought, time for love, time for making time for one another. If i’m brutally honest, i’d love a god who wanted me to have those times with my children far more than one who wanted me to devote my life to prayer. I find it hard to accept the notions of suffering, struggling and feeling the burden of god.
Religion isn’t going to go away; the English church divided in the 15 hundreds and we’re still feeling the effects of that division today in thsi country. It is only going to become more painful too, with our multi-faith, multi-cultural society. I can’t really see the point of the “we’re right and you’re all fucked and while your at it, please don’t get too close” mentality and i’ve kind of come to the conclusion that i don’t want to be part of it, not as a Christian, not as an anything. I’m not a big enough believer in a concrete hereafter to think that i need to.
What i do believe, is that there probably is something in it all – and if forced to say, knowing the truth would be immediately revealed afterwards and i had to take the consequences, i would say that i probably did believe in a divine force, one force that was all things to all people, lots of slices of the same pie, speaking to each faith as they came upon it – God, Allah, Hindu gods, pagan gods, the works. And i’d say that if i had to choose one thing to stand up on my day of judgement and offer as my lifes work, i’d offer up my attempt to bring some understanding, some tolerance, some ability to work together as humans. If it wasn’t good enough to have lived well, been kind, been gentle, tried hard and tried to be (for sake of a better word) godly, then i didn’t want to be part of it anyway. I’ll stand up on that day and say “i wanted to believe, but not for me was the path of prayer and piety but i did practise tolerance and love for everyone who also felt you.”
It may, or it may not, be good enough. It would be good enough for me; it would be good enough if one of my children came up and said “I tried not to shout at my sister when she made me cross, because i knew how sad it would make you, so i got her to come out and play in the garden with me.” It would be good enough if they said “We made a mess, but we tried to tidy it up so you wouldn’t be sad.” I’d rather a half tidied room or a game in the garden than practising perfection on their own inside.
This has been something of a long struggle for me, the acceptance that i’m NOT going to find that perfect niche for myself, but that it doesn’t actually change me at all. Not being a ‘good’ Christian, or a ‘good’ and devout anything else isn’t going to make me less worthwhile – but carrying on hunting for the niches might very well give me a lot less time for being a good person.
I can’t think of more important things i can teach my children than tolerance, open-mindedness, love, kindness, thoughtfulness and a sense of spirituality, of kinship with the other valid and equally entitled people who walk the earth with them. I’d be horrified to think they imbibed ideas that made them think less of someone with different coloured skin, a different accent, a different background. I can’t see that i perceive religion any other way. And so i think, instead of carrying on looking for how to start being religious, i’m going to concentrate on simply how i live my life and how much of all those moral codes i do value i can help my children to take one step further than i ever will.
I am totally with Merry on this one.
and I am afraid I 100% disagree that communion with the divine may be the reason why i was created.
I have no overt religion, nor do I aim to have one, whatever religion i may have is entirely personal to me, i have no interest in sharing it.
i think loving, respecting and seeking to do the best you can in the world for your family, friends, neighbours and global community are good aims.
I was created to replicate my genes. But this isn’t who I am, nor ‘the meaning of life’
Interestiing and thought-provoking reading. Its about where I am with God ‘n’ stuff.
Thanks.
There is more to religion than morality and whilst it is true that all humans are equal it is not true that they are all equally good. It isn’t about divide, Merry, it is about experiencing Truths beyond dogma and a cool Hamza Yusuf lecture, seeing and tasting with your very being and knowing without doubt that you would rather be thrown into a fire than be anything other than on the path that you are. That isn’t brainwashing, btw – that is like someone trying to convince you the sky is green when you know jolly well it isn’t and never will be. No matter who says what.
Once I thought like you. Once I was more you than I was me. Don’t trust people, do your own thinking, read the scriptures the religion gives and ask God Itself to guide you on the path It chooses.
Religion is not an ideology. It never has been and never will be. It is not a set of beliefs to imbibe and remember and quote off by heart. Religion is the tool which erases the ego, purifies the Self and puts you into contact with the Divine. Anything that can give you anything but that is not religion, even if it says it is, and even if you get a nice little community around you.
Religion is about submitting your ego to the Greater Reality. Some things just cannot be put into words and it always amazes me that intelligent people think religion is just about morality.
No. It is about walking an authentic path to Allah, seeking communion with Him. Morality, in the spiritual sphere is like stopping at learning your alphabet in the literary sphere. It is a building block to higher things and to stop there really gets you nowhere.
It isn’t about niche, its about fulfilling the reason why you were created. Where else, then, are you going?
Great post Merry.
I think the last paragraph of Merry’s post sums up most of my feelings on this. i was raised in a Christian family, my parents (well certainly my my Mum anyway, not so sure about my Dad nowadays) and most of my mums family are still pretty devout Christians. But god never seemed to speak to me, and I feel it probably isn’t going to now.
Debbie, you speak powerfully about the personal experience of your faith, and yes your are right that religion is about much more than morality. Though I disagree that religion isn’t also about ideology (and power and control and all the other stuff of human relationships, and yes, it does divide people) You speak of Truths and a Greater Reality – but surely that touches on the essence of Merry’s post – which truths, which reality? That of my parent’s faith, of yours, of another faith? (this isn’t question directed specifically at you BTW)
If it is case of whichever path speaks to you then that all seems rather unsatisfactory really -why is one truth more right than another?
As to whether or not here is a Divine force/god or whatever, well I’m happy to say I don’t know, and really, I don’t worry about it, though if I was pushed I’d probably say I thought there wasn’t. Viewing this life as what there is seems to make more sense to me that trying to make sense of the differing religious takes on things
“Religion is not an ideology.”
Well, actually i’d say, i think that FAITH is not about ideology, but that religion often is. Whatever book you read, you are trusting that the reason it was written was pure and without agenda – and no one can prove that. I can’t prove it about the Bible or the Koran by anything other than faith, i don’t think that it can be proved about anything else that has been written since either. They are words, good words, interesting words and very, very possibly true words, but i can’t get back to the root source without a degree of wondering who else i am listening to in the meantime. Even if i listen to my heart, i’m listening to a heart that has been brought up to believe that there will be a hell if i don’t find a religious faith and trust it.
“Religion is about submitting your ego to the Greater Reality. Some things just cannot be put into words and it always amazes me that intelligent people think religion is just about morality.”
This may be true; i certainly see that you feel that and that it enriches and fulfills you enormously to have that in your life. And i’m more than aware that it isn’t “just about morality” for you, or for many – but i’m beginning to feel that for me, perhaps it is. I refuse to believe that there is only one path to righteousness and i’m beginning to see that i’m comfortable with that.
What turns me off religion is arrogance, pride and judgement and i’ve been seeing it everywhere since i was a little girl. It hasn’t turned me off faith, but i see those strands in religion and they seem to be just as much deadly sins now as they ever were. I see a lot of people who have lost all morality in the name of religion; i see it through history, i see it now and i’m surer of bringing my children up to morality than i am of bringing them up to have blind faith when that faith has to be influenced by other humans involved in it.
Whenever i see Hannah and Linzi, we always end up talking about religion. They’ve never tried to convert me, though i can only assume that inbuilt into Islam is the same notion of “saving” that i find so off-putting in Christianity. I’ve never been put off by their faith, or their belief and far from coming away thinking “but i could never…” i usually come away thinking “if i could possibly manage to overcome my feelings about {this} then i think i would find happiness there.”
Debbie, i find your faith inspiring and your blog fascinating, i find your passion awe-inspiring, but i see things in your writing that turn me away too. When i imagine you, secure in your faith, i see in my minds-eye an island with spears turned outward; it doesn’t invite me in and i feel saddened and frightened by that. That said , you inspire a huge amount of contemplation in me. I admit to being profoundly offended by notions that unless i celebrate a festival one way then i, and everyone like me, are simply wrong and hellbound and i admit that the notion of being too unclean to even provide care for a righteously brought up child is so extrordinarily shocking to me that i simply couldn’t comment on it. That was so very far from my ideals of tolerance and well-intentioned open-mindedness that i just can’t see it as an illustration of any faith i could follow. But i see lots in your writing that amazes me in all sorts of good ways too, not least how sure you are about what you are bringing to your life and your childrens lives.
If anything, your blog has shaped my thinking more thoroughly than anyone else recently but all these things are things i have felt for a very, very long time and so while i can see that this might seem like some kind of random attack, please know that it is simply that you have awoken queries in my mind again. I’m going to assume that is why you write 🙂
I could never say i was a atheist, nor even agnostic – i’m pretty much sure that i do believe in a diety and that it is worthwhile to live a right life to worship it. But humanism to “affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities” is pretty high on my list of values too. I actually believe i can serve a diety very well by living those values and teaching them to my children.
I think there is a huge difference between faith and religion. And I also agree with your last sentence. Not that I’m doing a very good job this morning 🙁
Fantastic post :0) The last sentence I agree with too.
If i thought you’d done damage, i wouldn’t have the sense of self to write 🙂
You’ve opened my mind, opened my interest and made me enquire of myself and others. I’m not saying i’m right to be afraid of religious conviction and fervour, but it has been what frightens me since i was a child of 13/14.
It is as useful at times to say “not that way” as it is to say “this way” – i do it with HE all the time, not just religion.
I see people expound autonomy andi say “not quite for me” – but it still guides me.
You write to share, don’t you?
No I dont write anything for other people, I actually write what occurs to myself to write. Thankyou for your honest observations of me. May Allah guide us all and be pleased with us. Forgive me too, and I hope Hannah and Linzi undo all the damage I have wrought.
Take care
Lots of good thoughts above!
I think that when you come down to it, all anyone of any faith (including none) would want others to be is honest, open to other people’s ideas and able to examine them critically rather than rejecting or accepting them at face value. Whatever path you choose needs to be your own, not just one that someone else wants you to take. This means that the spiritual education of your children is tricky – you give them what you hope is good soil to grow in, and try to remove the weeds, but you can’t force anything to happen – even a copy of your own beliefs.
I also think that everyone needs a code of ethics and an anchor / purpose in life. They might not articulate them explicitly, and the anchor may be their family or their job or football team rather than a faith. People who knock those with a religious faith, describing it as a weakness and a crutch miss the point I think. What if some alien from the future arrived in a spaceship and told Richard Dawkins that all this lovely deterministic science explained only the most superficial layer of life, and that it all rested on a great mass of messy relationship-based super-being alien stuff? I suspect his world would collapse as his anchor is a universe governed by reason and science.
When I did some special relativity at college I was very glad I had a faith
You also need answers to deep profound questions, even though you might be so occupied with the everyday that you don’t ask them all that often. But when you’re sitting by your child’s hospital bed, or looking out over the sea etc, these questions come to the surface.
Sorry – this is wishy-washy and I’m not sure what my point is. The fact that we’re having a reasonable discussion about this is very heartening!
Oops – got part-way through an edit, then got distracted, then forgot about it and posted. Maybe I shouldn’t comment from work 😉
When I did some special relativity at college I was very glad I had a faith in God, as the basic reasonableness of the universe went out of the window, so wasn’t available as an anchor. Time slowing down, lengths shrinking – not because your clock’s battery’s running down or your 10 foot pole is in a vice or has something sawn off, but the Grand Clock of the Universe is slowing down, and the Grand 3D Grid of the Universe is having all its squares re-drawn a little smaller. (I have great respect for my classmates without such a faith who managed to stay sane in the face of all the weirdness.)
I found this interesting too, Merry. I have no faith in any kind of supreme being or belief in an after life and have never sought a reilgious or spiritual ‘home’. But, in my youth, I did read every political argument with a sense of looking for my ‘home’ – a place where I could agree with everyone, and a have label to hold on to.
As I have got older I have found myself identifying core values (very similar to those you articulate above) and realising that if I am true to those I will find myself in many ‘homes’, wearing a variety of labels, and that that does not matter as long as I am true to my core values. But I also think that as a thinking being I can and should question my core values from time to time. Questioning, thinking, discussing are all healthy. When they are discouraged we should all hear the warning bells.
thankyou Merry, Debbie and bob, this has turned out to be a good thought provoking thread
I would never want you to think that I am trying to convert you – makes me feel a bit like a sales person working on commission! 🙂 . Good job for me that it doesn’t work that way mind you 😉
I think I can compare it to homeschooling – when you have found something that works for you and has brought light into your life you just want to share it with others. It would be like you talking to a family unhappy with school and not advising them about how homeschooling works for you.
I think in this current climate that raising a tolerant, open minded and educated child is a gift for the future and you are certainly doing that…. x4. 🙂
H… funnily enough, tonight might even be an HE post if i can remember all the stuff i blogged in my head 😉
I don’t believe in an afterlife, or reincarnation or any kind of divine being. I think you only live on in the hearts and memories of those who loved you. I believe that when you die that’s it, and strangely I also find a certain comfort in that. But that’s me.
I support the church over the road from us because it is a historically important building that is attractive and is a place of community and support for parisioners who may have need for support at any time in their life. I have buried two babies there, but that was more because I wanted a safe place for them that was close to home than for any desire for them to be in consecrated ground.
I was sent for secondary school to an american evangelical school where we attended revival camps with the devil screaming as it exited people’s bodies, full hell fire and damnation stuff. But that’s my interpretation of it. I look back and feel that they were brainwashing exercises where people felt they “had” to come up with a sin to seek redemption. My mother would probably disagree with this but her experience is probably very different from my own of those years. She needed support and friendship following divorce, and I suppose, for her they were good times.
Chloe knows we don’t have a faith. We have friends who do and I have taken her to Shri Swamingarayan Mandir three times as I find it an inspirational building and a place of calmness. Once we were able to stay for a Festival of Lights which we felt was a privilege. I have also taken her to a Sikh Temple in our local town where we were shown around and things explained and then they offered us a meal – such openness and welcome. We went to the Cambridge Buddist Centre where we were shown meditation techniques and were told what is important to Buddhists. We hope to continue this for all faiths as she matures and periodically revisit so she has an understanding of and a lack of fear of other people’s faiths / religions / different ways of living.
Interesting thread. Thank you Merry.
I feel like I am being baited lol.
My first point is “If at anytime I have failed to show love, mercy and compassion mixed with truth, then I have failed the precious one that I serve, and I ask forgiveness”
faith (well faith In YHWH through Jesus Christ his son) is not religion its a intertwinning of love with my creator based on my aknowledgement of his love and holines and my acknowledgment that I am not as he is and cannot through myself hope to be, and need to be transformed by his spirit, through repentance.
Also about coversions, to go against the flow of modern corporate christianity which seeks to put bums on seats. Only Father God calls those who are his.
Peace
D
Debbie E – i can’t see how a post about how *i* perceive myself, my place on earth and what i want to teach my children to hold dear could possibly be considered baiting anyone. 🙂
I think what you’ve typed above is as excellent and thought-provoking as anything else i’ve seen. I’ve got great respect for the religious beliefs of both my Debbie’s 🙂 I just can’t make it work for me.
twas a joke!!!!! It was to much not to reply. No offence meant.
😉 Phew 🙂
I’ve read your blog on and off for a while, and have been a customer of yours too. You said that you’d like a god who wanted you to spend time with your children, not devoting your time to prayer. Of course prayer is important in Islam, but did you know that a Muslim believes that a mother is hugely rewarded for the time she spends bringing up her children. Every time she is woken in the night to deal with or feed her child, every moment of her pregnancy, basically every effort she makes in caring for and teaching her child is counted as worship to Allah, just as prayer is worship, if it is done with the right intention. People sometimes misunderstand and think that there is nothing in Islam for women, but all that reward for things that a mother does anyway, and loves doing in most cases. Just felt I had to mention it.
Maryam, that is very, very beautiful – and probably going to make me feel quite different in the middle of tonight 😉
Actually, the one thing my many friendships with Muslim women has shown me is just how much they get from Islam. It is in fact that which has opened my eyes to looknig beyond what i thought i was born into.
Nice to hear from you EF; you sound very happy 🙂
The reason why I ‘converted’ to Islam was because I have been searching my whole life for a religion that would support women, and I found that Islam did this. Maybe it seems ironic that I found liberation and respect and dignity as a woman within Islam..and I was amazed myself at the stuff I discovered about women’s roles in Islam (forgive any incorrect terminology..I am not that good at describing where I am at with this!).
I cannot speak for other muslim women, those happy with their experiences of Islam or those unhappy, I cannot answer the blames on Islamic culture, I cannot say that others are wrong or right. I cannot speak for those who have no ‘choice’ about being muslim or for those who convert and ‘see the light’. For me it began with a healthy curiousity..and just like you I wanted to know more. Then I had what can only be termed as a ‘spiritual awakening’ experience complete with thunderbolts and that sort of inescapable thing.
Reading the Qu´ran after falling to my knees and supplicating in the most natural heart overflowing with humility and truth kinda way strengthened my direction. I don’t get the thunderbolt treatment every day..but now I see The One, Allah, in everything..a flower, the corner of a table, my childrens ears, a distant tree etc. I want to supplicate because I am on hallowed ground. The whole world is a mosque…and when I stand on my prayer mat I am aknowledging Allah (God), The One.
I believe in One God, I call God Allah. I believe Allah is the source and that whenever people pray to spirit or Goddess or God or Jesus they are praying to Allah..it is The One. I believe that Muhammad (may peace and blessings be apon him) is the prophet of Allah, just as Jesus (may peace and blessings be apon him) was a prophet. I believe that all of us have locked inside us the kernel of truth and love, but that some (and Muhammad (pbuh) was one) are able to express this and serve our people with messages from The Source of all creation.
Now I have embraced Islam and benefitted so greatly, so deeply – I can hardly turn my back and return to the way I used to operate..blindly and desperately and yearning for a closeness to Allah I could only ever suppose was possible. Islam is a tool, it is something we do. It isn’t really an idea or a faith..it is more about knowing, I reckon.
Just wanted to give another take…we are all so very different in our expression.
P.s: I love your blog Merry, I had forgotten how fresh and honest your writing is:)
Love. You can’t go wrong with love. I mean the real kind, not the ‘hey baby you make me hot’ kind! Surely following the path of love (loving yourself, loving your children, loving your friends, and even loving your enemies …) can only bring you closer to God, whoever s/he may be. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.
I think I blogged once (a couple of days before Is. was born) that my faith was about having seen something beautiful, something deep and awesome and healing and wonderful, and trying my best to follow it except that I keep being distracted and pulled away by all sorts of things, but always returning to that beauty that I saw and knowing that THAT is where I want to be, in the middle of that Truth and Love and Peace. To me that is personified in Jesus. Of course I want to tell people about it, because it brings a dimension to my life that is vital, but only if they ask me and want to listen!
I do hope you find what (or who) you are looking for!
hey, I thought I was going to get an email tonight. lol.
now I see what you have been up to instead. wink.
I’m sure I could break into song right now with my thoughts on all this!
Maybe it needs to be a *mind*heart*body*soul* all clicking into place thing.
If something is left not-quite-right, then keep open and *ask* with the intention that when it is clear you will *do*. And I don’t mean that it will all be likeable, though there is no reason why it shouldn’t be!
Seeking Guidance is an ongoing process to stay healthy anyway.
Raise your hands, bow your head, ASK…
And read *a lot*.
Don’t judge on people and their opinions.
Always go back to The Source.
Truth isn’t like trying on trousers to see if they suit us!
Truth is in spite of our wants, how we see things, what we think is good enough
But ‘Truth stands out from falsehood’ TQ to a heart, mind, body, soul who seeks in sincerity and realises it’s place in the Universe.
This is the reflection I give to myself, my children, my friend…
*oops* Bob lets the side down again – thanks to Hannah, the Debbies, formerly-EF, Joanna etc. for setting a better example.
I expect that people for whom their family is their anchor or purpose would say that the most important thing is their relationships with their child[ren] and not the things that follow (cuddles, a sense of being more rooted in time, sleep deprivation, poverty, premature grey hair 🙂 )
It’s the same with many religions – it’s the relationship you have with Allah, God through Jesus, Yahweh etc. that’s the crucial thing and everything else is icing on the cake. (I say “many” because of those that are not centred on a person-like deity or set of deities but are more enlightenment- or meditation-based if you see what I mean.)
This is probably baffling and freaky to outsiders, and atheist neurology types could explain it away as just the activation of certain bits of the brain, but despite all that it’s what makes most sense to me. And no, I don’t have many answers to “How can all the religions claim to be true at the same time?” or many other big questions but I groping towards some kind of answer (if only I didn’t have to do some work during office hours I’m sure I’d be enlightened by now 😉 )
For Bob via Merry (hope you dont mind)
I understand you feelings entirely bob, I have been there. And the big questions is like you said how can they all be true at once. Without getting into the whole mines right on yours is wrong thing I think in the area of belief your always alright until you get to beliefs that are absolute. Most people are more comfortable with polythiesm like hindus or wicca or any of those camps. But the three main monotheistic Judaism, Islam and Christianity (which is really only completion of Judaism) you are dealing with its my God or the highway type of situation. The main issue is that if you choose to look for or believe in a deity then usually he has his own set of standards and teachings and to truly follow you have to accept them and live by them. You always run into trouble with a pick and mix type of operation because when we choose a deity for ourselves it ends up serving us and not us serving it, we choose what we like and think it should be and leave out the bits we don’t want. In this situation we each end up with our own relative truth deity. I think the main choice is ‘do we want our own truth as we make it up, or do we want the absolute truth of a deity that we can’t change but accept and adapt ourselves to’. The real issue as said by others is the laying down of the ego before a creator and humbling yourself before thier greater knowledge and power. To just make my postion clear I believe in Jesus Christ and that he is one with YHWH. YHWH is the God of the Jews.
Peace and blessings to all, have enjoyed the thread.
The Islamic take on this is simply that Truth is One and all prophets brought the same message – the Oneness of God and submission to His will. Where there are differences is where there has been loss of scripture or message, or where cultural overlays have superceded the original message. The kernel is the same, the differences are man made.
Yes Islam honours women EF. You know for every mouthful of milk that a baby takes from its mother closer she comes to Allah. The rights of the mother are honoured in Islam over the rights of the father since we bear our children with pain and hardship and for that endurance we are rewarded, and there is a saying which states that ‘Paradise lies at the feet of your mother’ and if you hurt her heart then you anger Allah.
Take care