motherhood__ the art of noticing, personal growth, unconditional love, negotiation to create peace-building in a small unit, acceptance and above all…..letting go
When I was raising my boys, I listened and looked to some of the most thoughtful mothers I knew, and was constantly searching and seeking other mothers who valued what I valued. Constantly stretching and changing.
Nanci Olesen, a phenomenal mother, journalist, writer, radio host, and extraordinary heart, had a program on our local radio station called MOMbo. I used to listen to her programs religiously. Just thirty minutes a week that pushed me to think and rethink about my role as a mother and my role in this world. I made many mistakes along the road of motherhood, but like any profession that we choose or fall into, these were important mistakes that helped me and my sons grow as people.
In 2003 Nanci wrote about the history of Mother’s Day. Julia Ward Howe’s “The Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace” written in 1870. She was an American poet and author. After walking the battlefields of the civil war with her husband and Abraham Lincoln, she wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Also known as “Mine eyes have seen the glory.” Later she would write The Mother’s Day proclamation for Peace.
I think about the many gestures cultures make to help ourselves come to terms with the many atrocities that have happened under our watchful __sometimes not so watchful__eyes. We build museums, dedicate days of remembrance in our calendars for observing peaceful people, genocides, reckless wars; yet we repeat and repeat the same atrocities, we do not learn and we do not remember consequences. It is no wonder that my favorite generation, my children and their cohort are rethinking and renegotiating the stories we have been telling our people. This is hopefully the generation that will not repeat the lies that we keep writing in our history books. This is a generation that has been connected globally and I hope that they simply cannot justify personal gains for destroying whole nations.
Two years ago while visiting one of my favorite museums in Minneapolis I walked through a small gallery with over twenty horrifying photos of homeless refugee children, mostly from Syria. Images as large as 3' x 4', so you could not escape the pain in those eyes. The exhibit, “Where the Children Sleep”, a photo documentary by Magnus Wennman captures devastated refugee children mostly from Syria. I can see the intention is to honor these children, but that is not what I experienced. I sat in that room for over an hour grieving and shedding tears and asking how dare we put up these photos as we keep creating wars in that part of the world? How dare we think we can have our policy makers represent war and then we as citizens want to show the devastation to an audience, and to talk about creating conversations? What conversations? Shouldn’t those conversations have happened before we unleashed billions of dollars of weapons and military might that could have been invested in our own country, for our own people? Of course we destroy homes and families by engaging in wars. This has been going on for four decades in that region, and forever in human history. So, how dare we put these photos up and not mention that we in fact were a part of creating this horrifying scene? We the nation that on paper believes in democracy, autonomy, individual rights, human rights and freedom of speech. I went to this exhibit three times, and have sat and reflected on it for over two years.
My question to the curator, the artist and the UN Refugee Agency were really angry questions, in my mind. What do you want me to do? To feel? I already have felt this pain when it happened, when it was happening, when my congress, my senate, and ultimately my president wouldn’t take a stand! Now, in this perfectly peaceful and beautiful space you make me stare into the eyes of these children whose lives we destroyed. Why? These were my feelings.
It is ironic and painful living in America, when you’re from the Middle East. It is painful because I know my neighbors would never ever stand for our policies if they actually knew what was happening. It is painful every April when we pay our taxes, because I know most of it isn’t going to make my country a better place, rather it is fueling military might. So it is that I write today. I live a privileged life of freedom. But my freedom has come with a deep cost, a cost that I never wanted to carry, yet I do by default like many of my friends. I refuse to feel guilty by always acknowledging, but the pain is always there. Sometimes the helplessness is overwhelming.
So this mother’s day I rewrite as I have every year what Julia Ward Howe noticed and wrote so beautifully 150 years ago. This time I write it to the young people in my life. To give them the permission and encourage them to take a stand against every act we’ve made as a nation that created consequences which have made their world an unsafer world. I still voice my anger towards our nation for not taking a stand to protect our children against gun violence, Sandy Hook is a story that never leaves me. Violence against especially young black boys and teenagers is a national crime that we still refuse to face as a nation. We are collectively lost in popular culture and distracted by leaders who want to separate us by religion, race, gender, class and above all a woman’s right to her body.
A Mother’s Day for Peace
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts, weather your baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have 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 for 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 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__
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 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
Today, I would add men and our children to this group called out by Julia. We are a better nation when we work together, inter-generationally, including our young and our wise elders who’ve been pushed out of conversations for far too long.
