Sherry Chandler » Standing Women
Standing Women
You can’t save the world by standing in the park. That is what we have armies for … Everyone knows you have to have banners and slogans to save the world.
But the Standing Women think differently. They hope to save the world by standing in the park and they invite you to stand with them:
Please stand with us for five minutes of silence at 1 p.m. your local time on May 13, 2007, in your local park, school yard, gathering place, or any place you deem appropriate, to signify your agreement with the statement [above]. We ask you to invite the men who you care about to join you. We ask that you bring bells to ring at 1 p.m. to signify the beginning of the five minutes of silence and to ring again to signify the end of the period of silence. During the silence, please think about what you individually and we collectively can do to attain this world. If you need to sit rather than stand, please feel free to do so. Afterwards, hopefully you and your loved ones can talk together about how we can bring about this world
May 13, 2007 is Mother’s Day. Here, from the Standing Women’s blog is Julia Ward Howe’s original Mother’s Day Proclamation:
“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our 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 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 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 our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow 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 then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place 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.”
To learn more and sign up, follow the link.
The proper answer to guns is not more and bigger guns.*
Thanks to Rosalie for the tap on the shoulder.
*Yesterday on WUKY, I heard Kentucky’s possibly senile U.S. Senator, Jim Bunning, repeat that old saw that tighter gun controls would only keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to keep them away from criminals. The logical outcome, armed-to-the-teeth outlaws running rampant in the streets and Ma and Pa with no way to defend themselves.
Later that day, I heard an otherwise intelligent co-worker, a middle-aged man with a son in Iraq, say that, when the terrorists start their insurgent ways in the United States, it will only be the fully-armed citizenry that will stop them, because obviously armies can’t stop them. “What people can’t understand,” he said, “is that there are people out there in the world who would just as soon blow you away as look at you.”
Such a fine line between vigilante justice and mob rule.
We are all so frightened.
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6 Comments
1. Rosalie O'Leary replies at 26th April 2007, 8:20 am :
WhenI first read this invitation to stand for our grandchildren, I though, “yes, this is something I can do.” Since then I have such deep and powerful feelings about participating with women around the world on Mother’s day, it’s hard to express. I just know that this is something powerful, and I am a part of it. Thank you for posting the info on your blog. Where will you be standing?
I also want to comment on your previous post about guns. At the end you said, “We are all so frightened.” I have a new little mantra, a meditation prompt, if you will. At least once a day I ask myself, “What would you do if you were not afraid?” and I just notice what comes to mind, and think about that for a few minutes. I find it at once humbling and empowering.
Thanks again, Sherry, — RO
2. Tommy replies at 26th April 2007, 9:22 am :
Oh yes, because the citizenry is better disciplined, better equipped, and has higher morale than our standing army. Why don’t we all go over to Iraq and show ‘em what’s what?
Does Mr. Bunning think that government does not work? There are laws against theft and rape and speeding, yet theft and rape and speeding occur daily. Is the answer then to do away with those laws? What does that attitude say about the governments who make the laws?
I guess I don’t have to say to this audience that tighter gun laws in Virginia might have brought Cho’s mental illness to the attention of the people selling him the weapons. Surely they wouldn’t have sold deadly weapons to someone found to be a potential danger to those around him.
3. sherry replies at 26th April 2007, 10:44 am :
“What would you do if you were not afraid?” Maybe that’s a question we all should ask ourselves daily, Rosalie.
Because I live out in the country, I need to give some thought to where I might stand. There is a city park in Paris that has an old tank-like vehicle in the playground area. That might be a good place.
4. Rosalie replies at 26th April 2007, 11:02 am :
Sherry, I will think of you standing in the playground by the tank (how appropriate) while I stand on the old bridge over Shoal Creek in Redding’s Mill (near Joplin).
5. Helen Losse replies at 26th April 2007, 9:46 pm :
Sherry, Do you know Rosalie and how to get in touch with her. I grew up in Jolin and know low water bridge quite well.
6. sherry replies at 27th April 2007, 7:13 am :
Hey, Tommy! There’s an article by Sidney Blumenthal in Salon, From Norman Rockwell to Abu Ghraib, that talks about the cowboy kitsch that passes for art in the Bush White House. It seems to me to be that same kind of nostalgia for the cowboy that makes us cling to the notion that we’re all going to prevail in some shootout at the OK Corral.
I’ve been thinking about that myth that it’s only in times of great danger that we feel really alive — speaking of cowboy kitsch — and that’s why men like violent sports and soldiering and stuff like that. It’s put forward by men as intelligent as Chris Hedges, and he’s been in enough danger that you’d think he’d know. Nevertheless, I think it’s a fallacy based on a rush of testosterone and adrenalin. Same thing as a runner’s high. Or perhaps it’s a problem of definition.
For myself, I prefer something as mundane as dinner with my family all around me. Good food and beloved company. That’s when I feel truly alive.
Here’s Emily D on the subject, thanks to the Writers Almanac:
875
I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.
I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch—
this gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.
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