Truth in Mother’s Day

Yesterday was one of those days every adult has, and most of us would prefer to forget. It kept me from my computer (which crashed when the UPS got overwhelmed at dinnertime) and from blogging in general. It wasn’t until we got the machines recovered and re-networked today that I was able to make my usual rounds. In them, I found Jesse Kornbluth had included a true gem in “The Beauty Part” section of
his blog on BeliefNet.
His mention and quotation of part of “Mother’s Day Proclamation - 1870” got me to do some quick research on Google. It led me to Jone Johnson Lewis’ site at About.com. The link is in the title to this post. It’s about the origins of Mother’s Day — which was apparently founded as “Mother’s Day for Peace.” It’s worth re-quoting the entire poem here:

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe lived through this nation’s Civil War, and it caused her to have a deep and abiding interest in peace for all nations, as the birthright of all peoples. She proposed this “Mother’s Day for Peace” as a way for women of all nations, all religions, all ethnicities, all classes to come together to speak up for peace.

I think that, in honor of my mother this year, I’m going to email that poem and a brief summation of its origins to lawmakers, policy-makers, pundits, and journalists. I’m going to recommend that the banality of “Mother’s Day” be revitalized, and recalled as the day of peace it was intended to be. I’ll urge all of you to do the same.

Julia Ward Howe’s proclamation was ahead of her time, and ahead of ours too, truth be told. It may be that we, her great-great-granddaughters, can live to see this proclamation of hers given more substance than a “dinner/candy/flowers” kind of spring holiday. What better way to remember our mothers, and all the sacrifices they made for us, than to make peace in their names?

Quote of the Day: None. Re-read that poem.
Metaphors For Life’s website