Jean Marilyn Trench and Julia Ward Howe: Peacemaking on Mother's Day

they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 
and their spears into pruning hooks; 
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah 2:4

When I was a little boy we had a tradition of going to the cemetery to put flowers on the graves of relatives. One time we stopped for gas on the way home, and my dad went inside to talk with the guys who ran the station, while my sister and I waited in the car with my mother. I asked her about the flags we had seen at many of the graves and she told me that the flags marked the graves of veterans. I asked if they had all died in the Second World War, and she said, no, it just meant that they had served in the military.

Then we talked about those who had died in the war and she told me that when a family lost a son they would put a flag in the window (I know there is a tradition of stars, but I think she talked about flags). Mom had been in high school during the war, and she was visibly moved by the memory.

“That must have been very sad for their mothers,” I said, seeing her emotion. “Yes,” she said, with tears in her eyes, “some families had more than one flag.”

“I wish I had been alive then,” I said. “I wish I had been in the war. I would have killed all those Japanese and Germans who made those mothers so sad!”

I was trying to cheer her up, and I could tell she knew that I meant well. She was quiet for a moment and then she said softly, “You know, Billy, Japanese and German soldiers had mothers, too.”

And I said, “Don’t say that. I don’t want to think about that!”

If we really think about it, it is almost unbearable. But as Christians, it is precisely what we ought to think about.

Mom’s thoughts came back to me as I read, again, the inspiring and emotional words of Julia Ward Howe, written in 1870.

Julia Ward Howe is best known as the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She was an abolitionist and a suffragist, and she was also one of the founders of what we now call “Mother’s Day.” In response to the carnage she had seen in the Civil War, she called for a Mother’s Day of Peace, in which the women of the world would declare a common interest in nurturing and protecting life. Her Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870, presents that bold vision:

Arise then ... women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will 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, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

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 learning after his own time, the sacred impress,

Not of Caesar, but of God.

*This post includes material originally published on this blog in 2010.

A Prayer for Mother's Day

Walter Rauschenbusch

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people,
and will have compassion on his suffering ones.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
Isaiah 49:13-16

For several years it has been my tradition to use Walter Rauschenbusch’s “Prayer for the Family” in the Pastoral Prayer for Mother’s Day. Rauschenbusch is remembered as the greatest prophet of the Social Gospel awakening of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His theological analysis of the social situation and his application of biblical principles to social issues provide a continuing legacy for Christians who want to understand the practical meaning of the Gospel. But during his lifetime, Rauschenbusch was known and loved for his prayers. He lost his hearing at an early age while serving a church in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, and the isolation this imposed made him a keen observer of the people around him. He was often moved to tears by the simple scenes of love and caring and pain that took place silently around him. On this Mother’s Day, as we celebrate the Festival of the Christian Home, our prayer begins with his prayer for the family.

“O God, we who are bound together in the tender ties of love, pray thee for a day of unclouded love. May no passing irritation rob us of our joy in one another. Forgive us if we have often been swift to see the human failings and slow to see the preciousness of those who are still the dearest comfort of our lives. May there be no sharp words that wound and scar, no rift that may grow into estrangement. Suffer us not to grieve those whom thou hast sent to us as the sweet ministers of love. May our eyes not be so holden by selfishness that we know thine angels only when they spread their wings to return to thee.”

On this Mother’s Day, we pray for those who have lost their mothers this year and for those mothers who have lost children or lost pregnancies. We pray for those who are struggling with infertility. We pray for the mothers who feel overwhelmed and inadequate, and we pray for those whose mothers were never able to give them the love and support they needed. May they be surrounded by your loving presence.

We give thanks for our mothers, and grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, and for all the women who have nurtured us and cared for us on life’s journey, for sisters and aunts, for Sunday School teachers and Girl Scout Leaders. We pray for single moms, and step-moms, and foster moms. We give thanks for adoptive parents and for those mothers who have courageously given their children for adoption. We give thanks for all the ways in which you have loved us as a mother loves her children.

We lift up our prayers for the people of this church and for the friends and loved ones closest to us. Heal, protect, and strengthen them according to their need. Comfort those who mourn with the assurance of your presence. 

We ask these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together with sisters and brothers all across the whole human family, saying as he said, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

A Prayer for the Family

Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom,

and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

She looks well to the ways of her household,

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed;

her husband too, and he praises her:

“Many women have done excellently,

but you surpass them all.”

Proverbs 31:25-31

One of the best things about Mondays for me is the gathering of moms and toddlers for “All God’s Children’s Story Time.” As I write this, they are done with the stories and the songs and are enjoying a beautiful spring day on the playground. Running feet and happy voices, what could be better?

But there is also a counterpoint.

On Mother’s Day I am always aware that the celebration of mothers and motherhood is not a universally positive experience. Not everyone lives in a Norman Rockwell painting. Looking out at our congregation yesterday, I saw one young mom whose husband died just a year ago, and another recently diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy, and one with multiple sclerosis. And then there are those who want to be moms and are coping with infertility. Others have recently lost their mothers, and still others have lost a child. And that is just a small sampling.

This has me thinking about Walter Rauschenbusch

Rauschenbusch is remembered as the greatest prophet of the Social Gospel awakening of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His theological analysis of the social situation and his application of biblical principles to social issues provide a continuing legacy for Christians who want to understand the practical meaning of the Gospel. But during his lifetime, Rauschenbusch was known and loved for his prayers. He lost his hearing at an early age when he caught the flu while serving a church in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, and the isolation this imposed made him a keen observer of the people around him. He was often moved to tears by the simple scenes of love and caring and pain that took place silently around him. In remembrance of Mother’s Day, his prayer for the family is especially appropriate:

O God, we who are bound together in the tender ties of love, pray thee for a day of unclouded love. May no passing irritation rob us of our joy in one another. Forgive us if we have been swift to see the human failings, and slow to feel the preciousness of those who are still the dearest comfort in our life. May there be no sharp words that wound and scar, and no rift that may grow into estrangement. Suffer us not to grieve those whom thou hast sent to us as the sweet ministers of love. May our eyes not be so holden by selfishness that we know thine angels only when they spread their wings to return to thee. Amen.