May 2006

Mother's Peace Day

Each May I pace past drug store rows of pastel colored cards, with my mother on my mind, when it dawns upon me again. Mother’s Day has been hijacked by niceties. As if purchasing the right card could somehow account for the contributions our mothers have made to our lives.

It’s hard to imagine, but Mother’s Day originated as a cry for peace in the midst of the violence of war. In 1872 Julia Ward Howe—mother, abolitionist, poet, and suffragist—envisioned that for one day each year the women of the world would pause to honor peace. She called it Mother’s Peace Day. With the blood of the Civil War still fresh in her mind, Julia proclaimed, “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 taught them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender to those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

Because we value mothers, we’d like to think that mothers embody our values. Julia Ward Howe reminds us that they often do. And yet, mothers aren’t simply born with a greater sense of family values than the rest of us. Rather, becoming a mother compels women to value families. The unique experiences of motherhood give women new eyes with which to view the world, and their values tend to shift accordingly.

Mothers want peace. They want peace for their nation, because they want peace for their children. Mothers want a future in which problems are solved not with bigger guns or smarter bombs, but through dialogue which values the common decency of all human beings. Mothers want to end war. Even more, they want to prevent it.

Mothers want peace because they know that the incredible miracle of a child is one that they share in common with women all around the world.

These days, some say it’s naïve to believe that peace is possible. Yet in the era of preventative war and nuclear weapons, it’s simply a mother’s common sense. Without peace, we will perish. To honor my mother this year, I believe I’ll forego the flowery card. Instead, I’ll join the ranks of mothers all over the world who are calling for an end to war and violence. I’ll call it Mother’s Peace Day.

Amanda Hendler-Voss Faith Communities Organizer Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss is the Faith Based Coordinator for the Women’s Action for New Directions Educational Fund and the Minister of Christian Education at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheville, NC. She is a graduate of the master of divinity program at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, where she received certificates in the Black Church Studies and Church and Community programs. Her studies have taken her to London, England and Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Amanda serves as a member of the Wellspring Clergywomen’s Alliance of the Black Church and Domestic Violence Institute. She has a background in case management and experience working with people with HIV/AIDS and single parent families. Amanda is ordained in the United Church of Christ.