Maybe you already know about the origin of Mother's Day. I didn't.
Womans concern about war goes back even further, I remember my oldest son
appearing in a college production of Lysistrata by Aristophanes 410 BC
Guess things never change..Remember your Moms today!
*Mother's Day* is celebrated each year on the second Sunday in
May. Inspired in part by Mothering Sunday in England, the U.S.
Mother's Day originally was intended to
"unite women against war."
The Mother's Day Proclamation written in 1870, was a call for peace and disarmament. In 1907
Anna Jarvis started a crusade to found a memorial day for women,
the first of which was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia, on
May 10, 1908. President Wilson declared the first national
Mother's Day as a day for the American flag to be flown in honor
of women whose sons died in war.
The* "Mother's Day Proclamation"* by Julia Ward Howe was one of
the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States.
Written in 1870, Howe's/ Mother's Day Proclamation/ was a pacifist
reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the
Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist
belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at
the political level.
Today, the proclamation is included in the Unitarian Universalist
hymnal,/ //Singing the Living Tradition/.
*Mother's Day Proclamation*
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided 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 bosom of the 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 out 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 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.
