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Dear John,
The original Mother’s Day Proclamation was written by Julia Ward Howe in 1870. It was a statement of mothers who had lost sons in the North joined with mothers who had lost sons in the South during the Civil War, proclaiming a day once a year for a “general congress of women” to declare the end to war and the creation of peace.
That Mother’s Day has devolved the way it has, robbed of its juice and edginess, is part and parcel of our modern tendency to put marketing before meaning. Yet never has there been a more critical moment for women to foreswear the ways of war and seek a better way. I find that reading this Proclamation every Mother’s Day is an important act of dedication to justice and celebration of the power of women.
Particularly in the Middle East, consider what it means for the mothers of the Palestinian dead to share their tears with mothers of the Israeli dead. In fact, peace movements of that nature have been ongoing in Israel and Palestine for years. One of the great tragedies of this moment is how pushed to the back burner such movements will now be, and I look forward to showcasing them in the days and weeks ahead. I have the greatest admiration for those who continue to do such work. They know, and I know, that it’s the foundation of a new and better world.
MOTHER’S DAY PROCLAMATION
Boston, 1870
“Arise, then… women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
We will not have great 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 vindicate 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 council.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after his own kind 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.“
~ Julia Ward Howe
This year, let’s embrace the meaning of these words more deeply than ever before. May their blossom in our hearts and turn our tears into powerful action.
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With love,
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