My Mother's Role in My Spiritual Formation

Both my Mother and my Father Taught in the University

of Pittsburgh in the School of Social Work. This 

Photo was probably taken in the 1970s or early 80s

My Mother’s Influence

While both my father and my maternal grandmother were essential to my brother and my early spiritual formation, the person who spent the most time with us, and who undoubtedly had the biggest influence on our lives, was my mother. My mother grew up as an only child. She absorbed lessons about her church and the Bible from her parents, both of whom were deeply involved in the ministry of their church. Growing up as a minister’s daughter, however, she was reluctant to become a minister’s wife. She saw how minister’s wives had to be perfect hostesses and how their lives were always on public display, being carefully scrutinized by everyone in the community. My mother, as a young adult, wanted more breathing room. Before she married my father she made him promise that he would forgo the Hawkins family tradition and never enter the clergy. My father agreed to this condition, but began to have doubts when the couple found it difficult to conceive.  My father prayed for a son and promised God that if his prayers were answered he would go into the ministry. Soon afterward, my older brother was conceived and my mother found herself entertaining guests in our home as a newly ordained minister’s wife.

Had I not known the story behind their marriage I never would have suspected that my mother became a clergyman’s wife reluctantly. She threw herself wholly in all of the responsibilities that come with this particular form of ministry. She taught Sunday school, organized women’s literary meetings, volunteered for charitable services and assisted my father in visiting the sick and the bereaved, this in addition to raising two boys and teaching at the university. My grandmother’s passion for the poor influenced my mother also. Her professional career centered on working with children in poverty, which led her to devote a lot of her attention to programs to promote education. She brought these skills and passions with her, in her role as a minister’s wife. She organized programs in her church to promote education.

My mother’s vision of faith was decidedly ecumenical and receptive to interfaith dialogue. It was from her that I learned to appreciate how essential faith is to the cultural life of a society and a community. She saw to it that my brother and I would grow up with broad religious exposure. She enrolled us in a Unitarian nursery school, a Jewish weekend and summer camp, Catholic elementary and middle schools, a Quaker high school, and accompanied our attendance at Presbyterian, Lutheran and Anglican services and Roman Catholic Masses. When it came time for me to make a decision about whether or not I would pursue my long-established interest in Roman Catholicism my mother became my confidante and sounding board; both parents, in the end, were models of support.

(From My Spiritual Autobiography)