Happy Mother's Day!!

A happy Mother's Day to all - friends and strangers, commenters and lurkers alike. As with most other holidays, Mother's Day appears to have many origins including an ancient celebration of the Vernal Equinox and an early Christian tradition of visiting your mother's church on the fourth Sunday of Lent, so that mothers might be united with all of their children at least once a year. But the origin that I find the most interesting (and thank you MomK for mentioning it Friday) came in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe proposed that all mothers unite in a call for peace.

Her Proclomation of Peace went like this

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.

So on this day dedicated to mothers, I would like to make my own call for the great human family to live in peace. Peace for the nations of our world. Peace for our families. Peace in our relationships. Peace in our hearts. As Meesh says in her email sig line, "Peace- It does not mean to be where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."

Happy Mother's Day!