Mother's Day: Originally a Day for Peace

Mother's Day: Originally a Day for Peace

By Last Night in Little Rock, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sun May 13, 2007 at 12:03:00 AM EST Tags: (all tags)

"Mother's Day was originally designated as a day to inspire people to work for peace. It was conceived after wars at home and abroad by American abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe."

RediscoverMothersDay.org.

Besides initiating the tradition of Mother's Day, Howe is best known as the author of the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". As a pacifist during the Civil War, she witnessed the devastating effects of the conflict through her work with widows and orphans. In 1870 she wrote the "Mother's Day Proclamation," a call to women to oppose war and to convene to promote peace and be the architects of their family's -- and their own -- political futures. She presented it at international peace conferences in London and Paris , where she lamented the atrocities of not only the American Civil War, but also the Franco-Prussian War.

Howe envisioned the first "Mother's Day" as a time for women to gather, grieve and determine a peaceful solution to war.

Howe's 1870 "Mother's Day Proclamation" reads:

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 at 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.

"President Woodrow Wilson declared an official national Mother's Day in 1914, approving the Congressional resolution to celebrate the day every year on the second Sunday in May."

If women ran the government, there would be no wars of aggression. Women, for obvious reasons, have no need to prove how big their "equipment" can be.

My oldest grandson is 3-1/2. A year ago, I feared he would end up being drafted to fight the War in Iraq as it entered its 20th year. Now we see "a light at the end of the tunnel," Henry Kissinger's famous words as the War in Vietnam dragged on.

Today, as Bush's poll numbers equal Nixon's at the time of resignation, the President should quit lying to himself and the people and tell us what we already know: This war is no longer winnable because your gang botched it from the beginning.

You, Mr. President, have no credibility left. As a nation, we have little credibility left, thanks to you. We have squandered almost all our goodwill, and over what?

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

And how many soldiers will die on Mother's Day? How many mothers will lose their sons and daughters in Iraq that day?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/5/13/0014/33123

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Baby Keeper: Here, Here!! Bless all our soldiers who must carry out the atrocious orders of a power monger, and bless their families.

I caravaned to the St Louis airport with the family of one of the members of my military family support group yesterday to greet the arrival of one of our precious family members. As people left the security section and passsed us more people than not looked away. Some on their cells phones connecting with loved ones were unaware of how precious that gift is -- to talk to their loved one and to live in America and have a phone or the opportunity and income to fly. A few spoke and said thanks. One pilot made an effort to acknowledge us and one woman stopped to watch our soldier in embrace with his wife and daughter. She looked at us and said she had chills.

What a joy to see my friend -- one of my sweet sisters on this journey -- and their three-year old daughter reunited with him - and to be with his mother, step-mother, father, aunts, childhood friend and family, neices, nephews, and grandparents as they welcomed him home. What a great mother's day gift -- to see a soldier reunited with his wife and child. One hundred and thirty-two years after Howe wrote her proclamation spurred by the impact of war on families, the US is gravely affected by war (while many don't feel it), but one family is reunited.

I was particularly touched by the huge embrace with him -- a man I had not yet ever met but felt so much for and for whom I had prayed so many months; a man the age of my oldest, in his military fatiques, shaved head, and sun-reddened face. Of course, he was clean, not fresh from the desert, but with the overwhelm of my senses, I felt the fall of the 6000 miles between me and my son, if for just a brief moment. A blessed moment for my soma and my heart and mind to take in. Today, I am very tired from the emotions of it all. I cry less these days and I play and work more. Earlier, I would have been in sobs by the end of these two post. Right now, one huge tear has welled up in my right eye. It fell and rolled down my cheek and I felt it land in my lap. Wow.

My GI Joe is over half way home -- seven months have passed. It's hump month in the year long deployment. I have been more likely to be appreciating the gifts of my experience with my son -- as a mother of a son a war; and a mother opposed to war and who has sought peace. And, I know to prepare for hard days in September and October -- the coming home is so stressful. God keep you safe, my baby.

Here come the others -- these join together and slowly roll down my cheek and neck. Have you ever noticed your different kind of tears and FELT them? It's one of the blessings for me.