As my daughter loves to say: “It’s complicated.”

As an American, I always called it Mother’s Day and then got all kinds of grief from those who always know better - but I have learned.

The origin and nuances of English Mothering Sunday are very different from American Mother’s Day. Yet sometimes when we do these symbolic things in church, we confuse the symbol with we mean and lose the point.

In church life it is not about having a great mother or being a great mother, or anything like that.

Mothering Sunday is about celebrating the feminine side of God, which is already an oversimplified and charged statement.

This is meant to express that we celebrate God’s nurturing, encouraging, creative and growth-inspiring love, which of course can be shown by anyone of any gender and any age.

And yet many of us imagine this kind of love coming from a mother - the best mother - even if we did not experience that. We call that kind of love “mothering”.

So, on Mothering Sunday, we give all the women in church, or anyone identifying as female, or anyone who really wants one, posies as a symbolic act.

Here is the second source of confusion. Mothering Sunday began as a day to return to your mother church with gratitude for all you have been given.

To show love and gratitude, we do something called clipping (or clypping) the church.

At the end of the service everyone leaves the church and forms a circle around it. When the bell rings we all hold hands as a way of hugging church.

But it is not about the building - it is about the people. And it is not just about the people in our church. It is about all churches and all people. Go figure.

If you want a look in, this year we are hoping to video our clipping you can join us on our YouTube channel, The Bourne Parish - unless the weather is terrible or something even worse happens, in which case you will probably have read about it by now.

But I am also a mum and am blessed that my daughter and son are able to spend the weekend with me to celebrate. And I do so love the chocolates and the flowers.

It’s complicated.