On June 2nd, 142 years ago, Julia Ward Howe worked to move all Mothers in support of peace, and bring an end to the viciousness and evil of war. She wrote:

Arise, then, women of this day ! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be 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 out dishonor, nor violence vindicate 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 council.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

from the Mother’s Day Proclamation

Perhaps there is no greater statement of faith than to invite that we may not bear the “impression” of Caesar, but that of GOD, living and made known to us in one another. Made known to us especially in our children. May we continue to seek GOD in one another and bring an end to seeking Caesar in them and in ourselves.

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