[Sundaycommunity] (no subject)

[Dean Riley]

Greetings to all members of our Sunday Community. 

I had sent a message this morning to Dwyer Sullivan as today (May 9) would’ve been the 82nd birthday of his wife, Sheila - who along with Sylvia were both very integral to the development of our program for Canadian student groups here in the DR. Dwyer sent me the following response…

…Sheila was born on Mother’s Day 1943 and has always been a big proponent of the original Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace by Julie Ward Howe. You can look it up, very meaningful in these days of violence and war.
Best wishes to you.
Dwyer.

I searched the internet and found the information included below on the Plough website… 

From the website: “Plough Publishing House, founded in 1920, is an independent publisher of books on faith, society, and the spiritual life. We’re based in Walden, New York with branches in the United Kingdom and Australia.”

After further messages back-and-forth between Dwyer and I, we both came to agree that this is something that would be appropriate to share with our Community given that this Sunday is Mother’s Day. You will find the entire article below. 

Many blessings to all…

Dean. 

-::-::-::-



While countries around the world celebrate their own Mother’s Day at different times throughout the year, several countries, including the United States, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Turkey celebrate it on the second Sunday of May.
In the United States, the official holiday stems from the efforts of Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia, who in 1907 began a campaign to have Mother’s Day officially recognized. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson did this, proclaiming it a national holiday and a “public expression of our love and reverence for all mothers.”

Long before that however, in 1870, Julia Ward Howe – an abolitionist best remembered as the poet who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic” – worked to establish a Mother’s Peace Day. Howe dedicated the celebration to the eradication of war, and organized festivities in Boston for years.

Today’s commercialized celebration of candy, flowers, gift certificates, and lavish meals at restaurants bears little resemblance to Howe’s original idea. There is nothing wrong with that. But here, for the record’s sake, is the proclamation she wrote in 1870, which explains, in her own impassioned words, the goals of the original holiday.

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your 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 is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out 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 learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at 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.

Julia Ward Howe 
(1819-1910)



Sheila (Murphy) Sullivan
(1943 - 2018)


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