The Reading Stand

Mother’s Day has a long tradition in many cultures and has become a national unofficial holiday in U.S. It is the second biggest celebration after Thanksgiving. Our mother’s hold a scared space in our lives, because without them, how would we know love. Please remember to forgive your mother for whatever she may have done to you and make amends, do a special celebration with her on mother’s day.  If you can’t, please light a candle in her name and thank her for all that she has done for you through your prayers. Muslims are reminded through a saying of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that  heaven lies at the feet of your mother.

Mothers, women let us unite and help bring peaceful, loving kindness and safety to our world. Let us help others honor life and begin to STOP the wars, suffering and loss of so many lives.

Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamaition of 1870

The first North American Mother’s Day was conceptualized with Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. Despite having penned The Battle Hymn of the Republic 12 years earlier, Howe had become so distraught by the death and carnage of the Civil War that she called on Mother’s to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their Sons killing the Sons of other Mothers. With the following, she called for an international Mother’s Day celebrating peace and motherhood:

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 great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of 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 of ten 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 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 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.

[http://www.mothersdaycentral.com/about-mothersday/history/]

Happy Mother’s Day mom!

Please make a comment as to ways we can shift the consciousness of loving and honoring life rather than WAR.