Another Mother for Peace

Last updated on: May 12, 2012 at 12:00 pm by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Another Mother for Peace 2012-05-12T11:18:53-06:00 Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When Caroline Stevenson’s son began to struggle with mental health issues, she did what any mother would do: she starting asking where he could get help. When she found in the 1970’s that there wasn’t much help available, she started asking why. Caroline became an activist the same way lots of mothers do–by seeing her own child’s need and realizing that lots of other children are in the same situation.

After joining the Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Caroline began to see that her son and others like him were not left without good care because of a general lack of resources, but rather because of specific decisions about how resources are used. “I started to connect the war machine with our lack of resources for mental illness,” Caroline tells me. “The military was sucking up all the money.” A good church lady, Caroline wasn’t out to cause trouble. She just wanted good health care for her son.

Then, in 1988, tragedy struck. Another of Caroline’s sons was coming home for Christmas on Pan-Am flight 103 from London when a bomb exploded, killing everyone on board. With the broken heart of a grieving mother, Caroline says she began to understand another American mother, Julia Ward Howe, who’d written a call to action following the Civil War.

Julia Ward Howe, mother for peace

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!

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.

“We mothers don’t raise our sons to kill other mothers’ sons,” Caroline says, reflecting on Howe’s declaration. “Mother’s Day isn’t the sentimental event Hallmark has made it out to be. It’s a day to organize.”

So once again this year, Caroline is calling the mothers of Little Rock together for a Mothers Day for Peace Luncheon. In one community, those who’ve given of themselves to birth and nurture children are leaving whatever they can of their daily work and commitments to gather together for the sake of imagining a new world in the shell of the old. “Where do you find hope,” I ask Caroline, noting that she has been at this for decades, the defense department now spending more than ever. “I meet all of these wonderful young people who are going to serve others in Cambodia and Kenya and Guatemala,” she says with a smile. “They’re going to serve, and when they come back they talk about what they’ve learned.”

This mother keeps working, inspired by a new generation that she prays will sow the seeds of peace.

It’s mother’s day weekend, and I’m grateful for my momma, who’s always loved me well, for other mothers who’ve taken me under their wings, and for mothers like Caroline, who do the hard work of hoping and praying and holding together the fabric of society that violence threatens to tear apart. The truth is, mothers for peace are everywhere. The peace that we enjoy is not the result of wars that nations have won, but the fragile fruit of those who tend the ties that bind us.

So, who is the mother for peace in your place? How can you celebrate her? And what can you do to join her today?

Features

Alliance for Mentally Ill

Women for New Directions

Previous Post

May 10, 2012

The Re-Settling of America

Next Post

May 14, 2012 Dear Class of 2012

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Features Front Porch Nurturing Communities Testimonies

Select a Month April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz