Tag Archive for: The Society of Friends

Mother’s Day Wasn’t Always Hearts and Flowers

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Today we celebrated Mother’s Day.  In our culture, like many other occasions and events, it is a holiday that has become a commercial windfall.  Cards, flowers, chocolates, clothing, and jewelry sales all get a boost.  It is the busiest day of the year for restaurants. 

But it’s beginnings come from the suffering of the working poor (in the grit of post-war Southern lives)  and the grief of mothers, wives, and sisters of men who came home from the Civil War on both sides,  broken, maimed, vacant…or who didn’t come home at all. 

Some credit the original Anna Jarvis, a working class woman of West Virginia who was disheartened by the sanitary conditions and the mortality rates of the area in which she lived and toiled.  Out of her 13 children, only 4 of Javris’ survived.  She called for a Mother’s Day in 1858, establishing women’s work clubs to reform and improve the lives of women and children.      

Two years after her death, in the year 1907, her daughter, also Anna Jarvis, began to hold a memorial for her mother and began a campaign to make Mother’s Day a nationally recognized commemoration, which it finally became in 1914.   

Another woman instrumental in the movement to forming a national holiday for mothers (to empower women in a meaningful way) was Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910).  A  social activist  and abolitionist, Howe rallied for a Mother’s Day for Peace in 1870, where women all across the country could come out and gather in peaceful demonstrations against war in all its forms.  Ironically, Howe is best known as the author of The Battle Hymn of the Rebublic (a popular Union “fight” song), yet felt compelled to imagine and create forums for peace as the realities of war came home to her in the devastation of returning soldiers, widowed and orphaned families.  She dedicated the rest of her life to the causes of pacifism and suffrage.

Both Howe and Jarvis were outraged in their lifetimes by any commercial gain from a recognition of a Mother’s Day.  It was a day to pray and join together for peace, to remember mothers (living and deceased), to honor and support the work of mothers everywhere.  The printed greeting cards and chocolates were banal substitutes for real affection and social justice.

And while I, today, was the happy and grateful recipient of gifts, heart felt cards, and a wonderful restaurant meal from my own brood, it also good for me to be present with all of the women who came before me to make my day (of equality, freedom, and relative ease) possible.  It is also important for me to remain in solidarity with all the women of the world for whom those gifts of liberty have not yet been given.  Complacency is an insidious and  lethal anesthetic. 

I will hold my joys and  sorrows as a mother together with the joys and sorrows of those past and present with my whole heart.

Hymn of the Day: The Battle Hymn of the Rebuplic by Julia Ward Howe  (not imagery for the meek or mild, but rather a call to action) 

Quote from the Hymn of the Day: “He is coming like the morning on the glory of the wave/He is wisdom to the mighty/He is honor to the brave/His Truth is marching on….”

*An historical side note: (Julia’s husband, Samuel Howe, was the founder of the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA and her maternal grandfather, Willilam Greene, was the governor of Rhode Island).  Religiously, she was both a Unitarian and member of the Society of Friends.

QUAKER GO TO MEETING TIME

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When I was a kid, my parents used to play a game with my brother, sister, and I on long car rides.  It was called “Quaker Go To Meeting”. Whenever the three of us were either arguing or just being rowdy and rambunctious, my Mom would lean over into the back seat and call, “It’s Quaker go to meeting time.” The object of the “game” was to see how long each of us could go without talking.  The winner was the one who was the last to speak. Now, until we were old enough to figure out this was simply a ploy to get us to pipe down, it actually worked (at least for 3-5 minutes).  Some semblance of this game has been used since the beginning of time and across every culture when parents need just a few moments of quiet. All humans know, on some basic level, that silence, even in the briefest span, can provide a bit of needed respite or create a receptacle to gather one’s thoughts.

The idea of not speaking on purpose is central to the tenets of Quaker spirituality.  In fact, an authentic Quaker meeting is a worship service that last approximately 60 minutes and is composed of thoughtful silence, interspersed with members sharing thoughts or feelings that have come to them during the time of meditation. They only speak if the Spirit has moved them. 

While Quakers have divergent religious beliefs and no creed, they all share common roots in a Christian movement that arose in England in the middle of the 17th century by founder George Fox, who  discovered Christ while going within. Today’s Quakers do not necessarily share any Christian understanding, but they do continue to adhere to two essential principles. 

The first is a belief in the possibility of direct, unmediated communion with the Divine. The other is a commitment to living lives that outwardly attest to this inward experience.  One of the ways that Quakers (also known as The Society of Friends) demonstrate this commitment, is through the art of active listening.  The worship service provides a model on how to listen openly and compassionately as well as a time of quiet reflection and meditation.  The members then attempt to practice both throughout their daily lives.

In an article entitled “The Listening Place” the February 23, 2010 issue of  The Christian Century, Gordon Atkinson (a Texan Baptist minister) visits a Quaker meeting  and describes, “A young woman broke the silence and spoke briefly.  There was a gentle shift of attention to her and away from individual thoughts and prayers.  People shifted in their seats and assumed various listening postures…I recognized in the Quakers the unmistakable signs of practiced, active listening.  When the woman was finished with what she had to say, she sat down.  There was a moment or two in which I felt her words were still alive in the room, still being considered.  And then the Friends shifted back to their individual thoughts, prayers, and meditations…it was the most refreshing spiritual exercise I’ve had in years”.

Perhaps we, too, can carve out some Quaker go to meeting time on a daily basis.  For us, it could be a 20 to 40 minute session in conscious meditation, carrying our full attention to those we come in contact with.  There is no greater gift to another than one’s whole presence.