On this Mother's Day, we pray for peace for ourselves, our families, our nation, and our world

Date:   5/13/2007 4:56:16 PM ( 17 y ago)

THE ORIGIN OF MOTHER’S DAY

Mother’s Day origins were not with breakfast in bed or a corsage or a greeting card; it began as a political cry for peace.

In 1870, fearing America’s involvement in another war, Julia Ward Howe, the mother of six, penned a document known as “The Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace,” that would bring a country to recognize a mother’s infinite love for her children, her husband, her home, her country and for peace. Mother’s Day began as a protest against war.

Howe had recently walked the battlefields of the Civil War with her husband and with Abraham Lincoln. She had just written “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” But now, as the Franco Prussian War was beginning, she felt that she could not bear any more violence. She called for a congress of women to gather immediately to promote “PEACE: A Mother’s Day for Peace.” Julia Ward Howe held a standing room only meeting in Boston the day that she read that proclamation.

About that same time, there was Anna Jarvis, who organized “A Mother’s Friendship Day” in which mothers from both North and South whose sons had died in the Civil War came, dressed in gray or blue, held hands together and sang. Anna Jarvis’s daughter — who shared her name — organized what is now considered to be the first U.S. Mother’s Day on May 10, 1908. President Woodrow Wilson... [redefined] its purpose in a non-political way when he set aside the second Sunday of May as Mother’s Day.

Written in 1870.....................

Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace

“Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands shall 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 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 plow 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 then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place 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.”


thank you to Valerie Eagle Heart who sent this message to me--Love and Peace, Liora



Related Blog: Stand for Peace on Mother's Day
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=356&i=130


The women of Ohio, U.S.A., call upon the women of the world, from day-old babies to our most senior elders, to stand with us on May 13, 2007, to save the world. Our project is based on Sharon Mehdi's book, The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering.

If you can not join the women at 1:00pm your time for the 5 minute standing, do so when you can; you will join with all the women in spirit-time whenever you do this!



 

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