Sixth Sunday of Easter – C1

Sixth Sunday of Easter – C1

Years C
Acts 16:9-15

Lydia prevailed upon Paul. Not much prevails upon Paul except visions. Lydia must have been quite a vision in her purple [grin].

With Mother's Day coming up it might be that what Lydia heard from Paul was a vision from a Prince of Peace that was a precursor to Julia Ward Howe's 1870 Mother's Day Proclamation and something worth spending some time in jail over when cries of "foul" are raised by the economic powers of the day.

Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have breasts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided 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 them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the 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 indicate 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 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 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.

= = = = = = =

preparation for council
is as important as council itself
preparation for prayer
is as important as prayer itself

in our preparations we feel
beyond our restrictions on feeling
limits of what is possible are released
from their position of sergeant-at-arms

deep hurts and pains
despairs and destruction
dance in our heads
and we on their graves

deeper joys and hopes
loves and resurrection
dance through us
and we dance on

having prepared open lives
we eagerly enter council
listen and speak in prayer
steadfastly instigating peace