{"id":871,"date":"2007-05-11T13:50:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-11T13:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/ryan-rodrick-beiler-mothers-day.html"},"modified":"2007-05-11T13:50:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-11T13:50:00","slug":"ryan-rodrick-beiler-mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/ryan-rodrick-beiler-mothers-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Rodrick Beiler: The Mother&#8217;s Day Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"10\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070511_howe.jpg\" align=\"right\" vspace=\"10\" \/>As we have in various ways over the years, it is incumbent upon us here at Sojourners\/Call to Renewal to remind our readers of the history behind the Mother&#8217;s Day holiday. For while honoring one&#8217;s mother is important &#8211; see commandment #5 &#8211; like most holidays, Mother&#8217;s Day has been distorted nearly beyond recognition by the greeting-card-candy-and-floral-industrial-complex.<\/p>\n<p>For the record, Mother&#8217;s Day was first declared in the U.S. in 1870 by pacifist Unitarian suffragist <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Julia_Ward_Howe\">Julia Ward Howe<\/a>. This was not a day originally intended for saccharine sentiment &#8211; it was proclaimed as a day for empowerment and activism!<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mother\"><\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mother\">Howe&#8217;s Mother&#8217;s Day Proclamation:<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Arise, then, women of this day!<br \/>Arise, all women who have breasts,<br \/>Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!<\/p>\n<p>Say firmly:<br \/>&#8220;We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,<br \/>Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.<br \/>Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn<br \/>All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.<br \/>We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country<br \/>To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.<br \/>It says: &#8220;Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.&#8221;<br \/>Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.<br \/>As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,<br \/>Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.<\/p>\n<p>Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.<br \/>Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means<br \/>Whereby the great human family can live in peace,<br \/>Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,<br \/>But of God.<\/p>\n<p>In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask<br \/>That a general congress of women without limit of nationality<br \/>May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient<br \/>And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,<br \/>To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,<br \/>The amicable settlement of international questions,<br \/>The great and general interests of peace.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ryan Rodrick Beiler<\/strong> is the Web Editor for Sojourners\/Call to Renewal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we have in various ways over the years, it is incumbent upon us here at Sojourners\/Call to Renewal to remind our readers of the history behind the Mother&#8217;s Day holiday. For while honoring one&#8217;s mother is important &#8211; see commandment #5 &#8211; like most holidays, Mother&#8217;s Day has been distorted nearly beyond recognition by&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peace"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ryan Rodrick Beiler: The Mother&#039;s Day Manifesto - God&#039;s Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/ryan-rodrick-beiler-mothers-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ryan Rodrick Beiler: The Mother&#039;s Day Manifesto - God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As we have in various ways over the years, it is incumbent upon us here at Sojourners\/Call to Renewal to remind our readers of the history behind the Mother&#8217;s Day holiday. For while honoring one&#8217;s mother is important &#8211; see commandment #5 &#8211; like most holidays, Mother&#8217;s Day has been distorted nearly beyond recognition by&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/ryan-rodrick-beiler-mothers-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-05-11T13:50:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070511_howe.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"gp_intern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ryan Rodrick Beiler: The Mother's Day Manifesto - God&#039;s Politics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/ryan-rodrick-beiler-mothers-day.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ryan Rodrick Beiler: The Mother's Day Manifesto - God&#039;s Politics","og_description":"As we have in various ways over the years, it is incumbent upon us here at Sojourners\/Call to Renewal to remind our readers of the history behind the Mother&#8217;s Day holiday. 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