Including words from the original Mother’s Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe

The very Earth is heaving beneath the weight of war.
Fire consumes and leaves no food for the rest of God’s creatures;
lead pollutes the soil, the seas, the blood of the children.
Earth, their mother, of whose clay they were formed,
bone from bone, groans with the labour of holding the poles 
of want and greed, fear and history, oppression and liberation. 
They clash in the sky like eagles and fall to the ground like the dead.

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says, “Disarm, disarm!” The sword is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. ^[i]

And God, walking in the garden, heard the blood, shed but not silent.
And God, human in the garden healed the injury inflicted and rebuked the sword.
And God, lying in the tomb, bore the wounds of the dead, the destruction of the proud.

And God, how long before peace becomes the birdsong of that place? 
Bear witness: we cannot bear much more of war.
Bear down love, the Holy Spirit like a dove, driving and directing our fast.
Bear down peace: lead us out of the valley of shadows, 
where the very earth hugs herself together on her knees. 
Heal her grief. Bear down mercy: save us by your labour. 
We cannot bear our anger any longer. Bear down peace.

^[i] The original Mother’s Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe