When Mothers make a statement
There are lots of stories about the origins of Mother's Day... from ancient Greece onward. Yep. You can check it out yourself by going to www.holidays.net/mother.
One story - not there - is about the strength, compassion and determination of mothers... everywhere.
Mother's Day was fixed in the US calendar by Woodrow Wilson in 1914 to be the second Sunday in the month of May each year. Then came WW I 'the great war'.
In May 1919, when this war was over, an American mother who had lost her son travelled to Europe to visit the gravesite of her son. As it happened, a German mother who had lost two sons stood nearby, grieving her loss as well.
Each, in her own native language, asked the question that troubled her heart, "Why did my son have to die?" The eyes of the two women met; the American, it turned out, had German roots... and the German had family in America. They spoke in English with each other and left the field of crosses. First they exchanged stories and photos of their sons. Even if one boy had actually killed the other in battle, both lives were lost.
The women grew closer in the question: Why did my son have to die? They resolved, between themselves that they would ask that question to other mothers of other sons lost and begin a movement of pacifism so that no mother's son would learn from the lips of his mother that it could ever be right to kill another mother's son.
The movement was grassroots and without formal organization. It was information mothers would pass to their sons and daughters to pass, in turn, to their own children.
"Father, you have given the Son autority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one."
Somewhere in the fervour of acquisition: power, land, money, raw materials, intrinsic superiority the message stopped being passed on. And children stopped hearing the voice of their mothers instilling in them the imperative to respect the diginity and lives of other mother's children.
We could attempt to do this again. The reverberations of the resolve in those two mother's voices might be heard again in our own voices for future generations.
We are one: may we respect and protect each and every one. Amen.
One story - not there - is about the strength, compassion and determination of mothers... everywhere.
Mother's Day was fixed in the US calendar by Woodrow Wilson in 1914 to be the second Sunday in the month of May each year. Then came WW I 'the great war'.
In May 1919, when this war was over, an American mother who had lost her son travelled to Europe to visit the gravesite of her son. As it happened, a German mother who had lost two sons stood nearby, grieving her loss as well.
Each, in her own native language, asked the question that troubled her heart, "Why did my son have to die?" The eyes of the two women met; the American, it turned out, had German roots... and the German had family in America. They spoke in English with each other and left the field of crosses. First they exchanged stories and photos of their sons. Even if one boy had actually killed the other in battle, both lives were lost.
The women grew closer in the question: Why did my son have to die? They resolved, between themselves that they would ask that question to other mothers of other sons lost and begin a movement of pacifism so that no mother's son would learn from the lips of his mother that it could ever be right to kill another mother's son.
The movement was grassroots and without formal organization. It was information mothers would pass to their sons and daughters to pass, in turn, to their own children.
"Father, you have given the Son autority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one."
Somewhere in the fervour of acquisition: power, land, money, raw materials, intrinsic superiority the message stopped being passed on. And children stopped hearing the voice of their mothers instilling in them the imperative to respect the diginity and lives of other mother's children.
We could attempt to do this again. The reverberations of the resolve in those two mother's voices might be heard again in our own voices for future generations.
We are one: may we respect and protect each and every one. Amen.
posted by Joanna Depue | 4:52 PM
1 Comments:
thisI have tried to follow. amen
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