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Peace and Empire: A Mother's Day Sermon
Rev. Brian J. Kiely, Unitarian Church of Edmonton,
May 13, 2007
Reading:
Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. 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 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 our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often 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 their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of 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.
Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870
Sermon
In 1988, a group of Israeli women began holding vigils to protest their nation’s occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Symbolically, they wore black attire to recall the mourning of those mothers and other women who had lost loved ones to war violence or who had been themselves subjected to the terror tactics of civilian murder and rape. They became known as Women in Black.
The protests are simplicity itself. The women meet at an appointed place and time and stand in silent witness.
No woman has tried to start a central organization or create a structure, but the word has spread. In fact Women in Black is not an organization but, “a means of mobilization and a formula for action”. These vigils now take place in cities around the world including every Saturday morning here at the farmer’s market in Edmonton. That group features a number of women from this congregation and Westwood.
When I first became familiar with the organization a few years ago, I was struck by how WIB was carrying on the work Julia Ward Howe began in 1870 when she invented Mother’s Day.
As our reading made clear, Mother’s Day was not designed to be the bonanza for greeting card companies, florists and brunch restaurants that it has become. It was a day of action by mothers. It was a day for them to demand that sons, husbands and brothers put down the tools of war and pursue instead the path of peace.
“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.”
Though mostly remembered today for composing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” Julia Ward was born May 27, 1819. Daughter of a wealthy New York banker, Julia was well-educated and extremely well read. She was a fine thinker, already published by the age of 20. Possessing a beautiful singing voice she was also a popular socialite.
According to Joan Goodwin on the UU Biography website, Julia grew up Episcopalian and strictly Calvinist, and turned to her religion with the death of her father in 1839. Her mother had died when she was 5, so her father was a key figure in her life. She found no comfort in church, however, for her studies had exposed her to far more liberal ideas.
Later she wrote, "I studied my way out of all the mental agonies which Calvinism can engender and became a Unitarian." A few years later she met Samuel Howe, a pioneer educator of children with multiple handicaps. A courtship began, and a wedding followed in April, 1843. Though strongly attracted to one another, both expressed misgivings before their marriage. Reformer Samuel Howe wanted a wife to support him in his work and doubted whether a talented socialite was equal to the task. Julia Ward admired Howe extravagantly but recognized their differences. He was serious and wholly focused on his work; she was brilliant and witty, loved literature, music, and the social scene. "The thought of what I have undertaken weighs upon me," she wrote to her sisters, "but the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and (Samuel) is an angel of light—so all will be well."
In 1846 the couple settled in Boston where Julia attended services by Theodore Parker a Unitarian minister known for his firey and controversial social justice stands. Parker could draw crowds of 3,000 people to hear him preach.
In the ensuing years she continued to publish essays and poetry regularly and grew increasingly unhappy in matrimony. One volume of poetry seemed to reveal the disharmony and nearly ended the marriage.
"I have been married twenty years today. In the course of that time I have never known my husband to approve of any act of mine which I myself valued. Books—poems—essays—everything has been contemptible in his eyes because not his way of doing things. . . . I am much grieved and disconcerted."
During the 1850s Parker and Howe had drawn Julia into William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery group. She came to admire him and other abolitionist leaders. When the Civil War broke out both Howes worked with the Sanitary Commission, forerunner of the Red Cross. Julia Ward Howe began making public appearances.
On a speaking visit to Washington, Howe found herself surrounded by a troop of Confederate soldiers. She began singing patriotic songs. That evening, she penned the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ which quickly became a northern anthem in the Civil War and gave her more public prestige.
In 1868 Julia Ward Howe co-founded the New England Woman's Club. She also helped form the New England Woman Suffrage Association and served as its president, 1868-77 and 1893-1910.
"During the first two thirds of my life," Howe recalled, "I looked to the masculine idea of character as the only true one. I sought its inspiration, and referred my merits and demerits to its judicial verdict. . . . The new domain now made clear to me was that of true womanhood—woman no longer in her ancillary relation to her opposite, man, but in her direct relation to the divine plan and purpose, as a free agent, fully sharing with man every human right and every human responsibility. This discovery was like the addition of a new continent to the map of the world, or of a new testament to the old ordinances."
Friends noted the change in Julia as she discovered this new domain: "It gave a new brightness to her face, a new cordiality in her manner, made her calmer, firmer; she found herself among new friends and could disregard old critics."
During the Franco-Prussian war, Julia felt in "the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. . . . a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed." She began a one-woman peace crusade that started with the impassioned "appeal to womanhood" Mary read moments ago. She translated her proclamation into several languages and distributed it widely. In Boston, she initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June and held the meeting for a number of years. Her idea spread but was later replaced by the Mothers' Day holiday now celebrated in May.
In 1908 Julia Ward Howe was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Not long before her death in 1910, Smith College accorded her an honorary degree. The ceremony included "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," often performed to celebrate her appearances. (See note below.)
Julia Ward Howe is one of those luminaries of our Unitarian history, a woman who never stopped believing that one person could change the world with moral ideas and effective words. Her life was dedicated to life and peace and the equality of all people.
On this day, it is nice to remember our mothers and to thank them when we can. But Julia Ward Howe and the Women in Black would ask something more of us…that we do what we can to preserve the lives that the mothers bring into the world.
Many of you know that I cannot fully commit to pacifism, but I was struck by Julia describing the Franco-Prussian war as, “a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed.”
Like Mr. Bush’s disastrously failed war in Iraq, it was an unnecessary conflict based on false accusations and faked intelligence claims. Both wars were, in blatant obviousness acts of imperialism. In the case of Iraq, it is a naked attempt to preserve the United States’ claim as most powerful nation on earth.
Sadly, Mr. Bush and his advisors tried to cloak the evil skeleton of that narrow vision in the garb of freedom and democracy, the founding principles of the United States. The only surprising thing about the last four years was how quickly the winds of war tattered that thin disguise.
Perhaps the Bush Administration has not yet perpetrated the horrific excesses of the Nazi Third Reich, but theirs is a war of imperialism and so is on the same path. The creation and, even more the preservation of empire demands the crushing of people, of cultures and of individual rights both in the war zone and at home. Mr. Bush’s greatest failure has been his inability to shape or control dissent at home.
Imperial war requires the over-inflated demonizing of enemies and the exaggeration of any fault into a crime demanding violent retribution. For all of his talk of spreading democracy and embracing freedom, Mr. Bush’s empire building agenda can only be served by subjugation, by half truths and outright lies. Already there have been clear human rights abuses and the rise of an armed resistance determined to make the lives of American occupiers Hell on earth. Mr. Bush calls them terrorists and criminals. That’s what Hitler called the World War II resistance movement. The parallel is not lost. Perhaps the only difference between them is that Mr. Bush has not gained absolute power and will be forced to retire in 19 months. Even the presidential candidates of his own party have disowned this failed Caesar who has rejected out of hand every possible solution that could build a peace in Iraq.
Still, 19 months is a long time, about 80 more weekly vigils by Women in Black in 165 countries. Heaven knows how many more women will lose their lives or their loved ones between now and then. 80 more times to, “Meet first, as women to bewail & 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 Caesars, but of God.”
On this Mothers Day, Julia Ward Howe stands to remind us that, “The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” When the Women in Black stand in silent vigil, then humanity stands accused of trading the best we have for the basest trinkets of empire. The best gifts we can give our mothers this day is a recommitment to the path of peace – the path of life.
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