Minister's Moment

May is both a month of endings and a month of beginnings – mostly between the

end of the school year and celebrating graduations and beginning of summer. May

is also a month of remembering and honoring, as we observe both Mother’s Day

and Memorial Day.

Mother’s Day especially can bring mixed emotions for people. So, every few years, I

remind myself (and everyone else that I can) about the origins of Mother’s Day.

Did you know:

Mother’s Day began as a movement for peace.

After many years of working within her community to help improve local

environmental conditions and education on hygiene, in an attempt to help

prevent childhood deaths, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis organized women’s groups

to help soldiers on both sides of the Civil War who were sick or wounded. In

1868, Jarvis organized a “Mother’s Friendship Day” to bring families from both

sides of the war together to try to restore a sense of community. Jarvis worked

tirelessly to promote peace and unity.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe (author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”) issued

a statement that came to be known as the “Mother’s Day Proclamation.”

Concerned about the Franco-Prussian war, and having been horrified by the

death and destruction of the Civil War, Howe urged the creation of an

international body of women who could find ways to avoid bloodshed and war.

When that didn’t happen, Howe sought to establish an annual “Mother’s Day

of Peace” to be celebrated in June. It did happen in a few places but didn’t catch

on.

After Ann Jarvis’ death, her daughter, Anna, set out to honor her mother’s

legacy by establishing a national Mother’s Day, changing the holiday’s focus

from peace and activism to honoring one’s own mother. Anna won the day, with

President Wilson proclaiming the first national Mother’s Day in 1914.

As Mother’s Day became more prevalent, Anna grew increasingly discontented

by the commercialization of the day. What she had envisioned as a “holy day”

honoring the mothering work done by women had become something entirely

different. She started a petition to have it recalled in 1943.

Mother’s Day began as a movement for peace – a movement inviting women to

come together across divides; to call for the end of war and violence; and to show

that, together, the impossible is possible, working and living in community. I think

that is a great message, especially with all that is happening in the world today.

And so, may we, like Julia and Ann, once again proclaim that peace rule in the

world and do our best to work together to make it happen.

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

Love & Blessings,

Ann