Mother's Day

Helaman's sweet teacher brought these cute frames for his class to make for mother's day. He really enjoyed the project and was really proud of the outcome. Too proud to share. As we were walking out of church I said, "Thank you so much for this frame you made for mother's day, I love it!" And he responded: "You're welcome, but it's mine."

A point he has not varied from. Oh well, at least he put it on the fridge so I'll get to look at it. :)

This morning a post on another blog made me curious about the origins of Mother's Day. In North America it first started with Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870. She was the author of Battle Hymn of the Republic, but after living through the horrors of the Civil War, called for women to unite in an international mother's day to celebrate the cause of peace. I was really touched by her poetry.

Arise, then, women of this day!
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 of 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."

While I understand the necessity of war, I have always been distraught by the awfulness of it. He words describe thoughts and impressions I've had, but never been able to express. I thought it was absolutely beautiful, both in it's message of peace and it's tribute to the work that mother's do, and I really wanted to share.

Happy Mother's Day!