It Used to be Called Mother's Day for Peace

I know I am either almost a year early or a few months too late, but I was reading something online today and it touched my heart. I wanted to share it with you. This is a passage from Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870 - the origional meaning of Mother's Day was not about consumerism - chocolates and flowers and jewelry - it was political, it was about peace:

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 of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender to those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice 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 sumons 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.

Neutrality, does it exist?

Not sure what to make of being "back". In some ways it's hardly an issue since I was only gone for three weeks. In other ways I know my life will never be the same again, like this huge wave hit me and I'm still trying to catch my breath at the surface. . . I haven't caught it yet.

I was really hoping to go to some meaningful discussions on the anniversary of September 11th, but my University had little to offer as far as productive, robust conversation which was disappointing and perhaps expected. I did attend a poetry recital (?) at the Kelly Writer's house that was rather moving, but there was no discussion afterward and so I sat there after having felt this huge range of emotions with very little outlet to make them come alive in my life.

I have to read some Descartes for one of my courses this semester - and he's doubting everything and trying to justify his conclusions about how we get knowledge and what certain knowledge is and how it is not connected to sensory knowledge. . . And I wonder how I am supposed to interact with that sort of paradigm given my recent experience which is all sensory, but the reality of it, the certainty of the terror I and other felt while bombs were dropping or even afterwards - is that not certain knowledge? Perhaps the terror is not real because it is not human - its a myopic and treacherous manifestation of human fear. Perhaps what was more real was all the instances of human kindness, resilience, and love. I still wonder how I can fit my experiences in Lebanon into Descartes' world view? Any ideas? (farah@vcnv.org)

Speaking of, my friend Dan from Voices in Chicago, recently reminded me of something Paolo Freire said about the education process after I was complaining about one of my professors who seemed to take a "neutral" stance on the Palestinian-Israel conflict. Dan told me to remind my professor that there is no middle way: either an education process helps people in their empowerment or the education process helps maintain the status quo. No education process can be neutral and, likewise, no participatory process can be neutral.

I feel very much the same way about Lebanon. A thoughtful even responable discussion is terminated when one brings up a debate on whether or not there was a "proportional response" or how Israel NEEDED to defend itself because of lessons learned after the holocaust - when the ideas and discussion go in that direction it is possible that the entire conversation will get confused and most of the time hardly recovers.

The truth (an idea we all hope to possess yet how many hope to live it?) is not relative. The truth exists, surely in very different forms, but the nature of truth proceeds.

A given - Where you stand determines what you see, and we must wrestle with this reality, however the total devastation of Lebanon is very real, and was not a reasonable or proportionate response to the taking of 2 Israeli soldiers no matter whose compass is measuring. Israel's response is even more difficult to believe when one considers the constant incursions into Lebanon Israel regularly participates in either through brute force (soldiers landing in Lebanon) or through their unmanned surveillance Plane constantly taking pictures of what is happening in the South.

The other aspect of the the discussion is how close we are to seeing similiar warfare in the U.S.

Large banners hung on demolished buildings reading, "Made in the U.S.A.". We are not planting seeds of forgiveness and reconciliation in the middle east nor democracy. The response we receive from seeing images like that above are of righteous indignation, and because they exist and are part of the consciousness in Lebanon we need to be actively participating in relating to that in a way that may reverse the rage, dutifully, humbly, thoughtfully.

However, many instead either by apathy or ignorance go on living their lives as if they have no relationship to what is going on, and what is going on is the murder of the innocent. Except we have our hands all over it because we sponsor that murder. That's what many in the Middle East experience as "the truth" and we determine to ask ourselves "why do they hate us?" or decide that all the anger can be explained by labeling all groups Islamic fascists or terrorists or what have you and then these people whose identity we do not know go untouched - we do not try to interact with their reality because we decide its so different than our own or that their reality is bent on our destruction. All of this is nonsense but its powerful because it allows us to live our lives fearful and unaware.

Homecoming

Hi Friends:

Well, I made it safely (!) back home. . . though I can not say that for a lot of those I met in Lebanon. I am slowly making the transition to being in a place of calm abundance. I came back last Friday and immediately left for the ALC (Atlantic Life Community) retreat in Voluntown, CT. I love the community in Voluntown, both its members and the space itself. I was also able to see some good friends I had not seen in a while, I am specifically thinking of Kate and Steve who used to work with us at Word and World. They have been taking care of Kate's Father who is in hospice - they are some of the most insightful, depthful individuals I know and it is my great pleasure to have them as friends.

My life very different from when I left for Lebanon. There is an urgency in me for peace that I haven't previously felt at such a depth. . . how we belong to one another and how precious life is. I know I must be saying some things that might be typical for one coming back from my experience, but these feelings are very real for me and similar experiences have led me to do the work that I do now with Camden House, Word and World and Voices. We do belong to one another and realizing who we are as "children of God" is also an acknowledgement of our relationships to one another - there are no strangers in this world family. And I believe the more and more we come to realize this interbeing, interdependence the more and more we will be moved to resist the forces of death in our world.

I would like to conclude this brief post with some words from one of my mentors in the movement, Bell Hooks, "[at the end of the journey] we all learned about joy in struggle, about connections betwen theory and practice. We learned that the movement from talk to action is often a perilous journey. Yet like all great adventures, it positively transforms us. We become more fully ourselves at the journey's end-made whole. Parker Palmer speaks of moving through fear as we begin to learn new ideas, new ways of seeing the world, as we confront differences with no need to annhilate them, confessing: 'I am fearful. I have fear. But I don't need to be my fear as I speak to you. I can approach you from a different place in me-a place of hope, a place of fellow feeling, of journeying together in a mystery that I know we share.' Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose setey instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community."