Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I preached a very brief "sermonette" as I called it at First Parish in Milton, and what I focused on was the history of it, and NOT the idea of chocolate, flowers, and obligatory phone calls to mothers.  Of course, anyone who cares for children should be appreciated regularly. I am not even going to think about how long it will be before this country makes the raising of children and families a priority.

But the interesting thing about "Mother's Day" is that originally, it had nothing to do with what it's become now.

In 1872, Julia Ward Howe -- you know: Battle Hymn of the Republic Julia Ward Howe - proposed an annual Mothers' Day for Peace.  For thirty years, it was honored but only primarily here in the Northeast. A Unitarian, she worked to end slavery, helped to initiate the women's movement in many states, and organized for international peace—all at a time, she noted, "when to do so was a thankless office, involving public ridicule and private avoidance."

Sounds kind of familiar, right?

Part of what I found so moving was a proclamation that Howe wrote in 1870 called the Mother's Day Proclamation. It goes like this:

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 bosom 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.

Howe wasn't the only one with these ideas. There were other women working on this at the time. . These women believed motherhood was a political force that should be mobilized on behalf of the entire community, not merely an expression of a fundamental instinct that led them to lavish all their time and attention on their children.

And this made me think of the Women's March on Washington. Strength in numbers? You bet. A call for justice and peace? Absolutely. Peace didn't happen in 1870 but it's too important to give up on.

Your encore for the week? That's easy -- put on your pink pussy hat and get out there and work for a better world for all.

Happy Mothers Day!