“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."
Mother’s Day Proclamation – Julia Ward Howe (1870)
I attended a Quaker Meeting on Sunday as I am sometimes called to do. This sacred proclamation was read aloud. When I stopped and realized that Julia Ward Howe’s plea was made 138 years ago, it made me wonder when will we actually learn that from the carnage of others we will never build civil societies or peace. Each Mother’s Day this proclamation surfaces and each day after Mother’s Day it gets buried once again. I believe we have evolved now to a state where we are able to see that the carnage of one is not the win of another. We need to make this proclamation again this year. We need to learn from it and live its words.
Maureen Simon
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