MOTHERS DAY

                                                MOTHERS DAY

Last weekend was Mothers day. The other day, I thought, I really have no Mother’s in my life to write about anymore. Oh, I could write about my daughters or daughter-in-law, as they have all been successful Mom’s. Or I could give a nod of the head to my friend, who raised two daughters. But just for today, I’m going to talk about a woman I once knew, who at least in my eyes, epitomizes the word Mother.

When my wife and I were raising our children, we had the opportunity to meet a woman named Mary Jo Copeland. She went to our church and lived in our town with her large family. I believe she had at least a dozen children. She seemed to be a little bit of a mystery to me because in her quiet and in intrusive way she seemed to surface in the news from time to time, working with the poor people of the inner city in Minneapolis. But In her home town she seemed to be just another of the women and mothers, or at least back then. That is until you went down to where she worked; where the truly needy seemed to be and then believe me you saw a whole new side of her.

Mary Jo did whatever she had to do to find food, clothing, medical care or shelter for needy sometimes-desperate people. If you had an addiction, and many of the people did, she could point you to treatment centers. If it was a cold winter night and you were without shelter she could take you in or find you a bed. Over the years her efforts helped thousands of people and still do today. Her husband and some of her family have now partnership with her in her origination,” Sharing and Caring Hands. “ It has grown over the years, by leaps and bound.

Mary Jo takes no Federal or State money or government help. She knows that would only bring about unnecessary strings and regulations, for how she should run her organization. She has, in the past, been harassed by local city authorities to move her building elsewhere because it didn’t seem to go with their plan, for developing the area. Her response was to ask them to visit her establishment and see for themselves her work and so far it has seemed to work.  In other words she won them over. I have a personal friend who is a retired Minneapolis Police Officer. He can’t say enough good things about Mary Jo. Neither could President Obama.

Mary Jo is a deeply religious woman and gives the credit for all of her efforts to God. She is so religious, so trusted, she has her own key to the church she belongs to, so she can go pray there in her spare time. Imagine that-- with all she does-- spare time. I grew up hearing about Mother Theresa of Calcutta. She is revered in the Catholic Church, but she was a Nun and had the support of her order and the church, and that’s not to minimize all that she accomplished. We here in Minnesota may have our own little Saint in the making and few of us know about her outside of Minneapolis

Sometimes we say the word “Mother,” and we think only of our mom or our grandmother. Or some special mom that came into our lives. But how about one that has been a mother and a provider to her family and the poor masses of Minneapolis for decades. A book has been written about Mary Jo’s extraordinary efforts. Its called “Great Love.”  You should Google it.