In 1870 after the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe called for a Mother’s Peace Day. Here are the words to her original Mother’s Day Proclamation:

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.”

From the bosum of a 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 plough 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 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 Caesar,
 but of God -
 in the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
 that a general congress of women without limit of nationality, 
may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
 and 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.

As the United States celebrates the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, may we remember that every war is a civil war and reach beyond our anger and grief to find a place of healing. On Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 8, 2011, please join me in dedicating half an hour of your spiritual practice for peace. I will chant the heart sutra.