UU WOMEN AND PEACE-MAKING

 

LEARN THE ART OF WAR NO MORE

Rev. Dr. Dorothy May Emerson

UU Church of Greater Lynn, August 15, 2004

 

 

CHALICE LIGHTING            "Welcome Peace!"    by Frances EW Harper

 

Unitarian Frances Ellen Watkins Harper wrote these words shortly after the American Civil War ended:

 

Welcome Peace! thou blest evangel!—

            Welcome to this war-cursed land;

O'er the weary waiting millions

            Let thy banner be unfurled;

On the burning brow of anger

            Lay thy gentle soothing hand;

Say to Carnage and Destruction,

            Ye shall cease to blight the land.

 

Plead in tones of love and mercy,

            'Mid the battle's crash and roar;

'Till the nations new created

                        Learn the art of war no more.

 

 

TIME FOR ALL AGES

 

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an African American woman who lived from 1825 to 1911.  When she was a child, most people of African heritage who lived in the United States lived under what conditions?

 

What did it mean to be a slave?  What do you suppose it would have been like?

 

But Frances was very lucky, because she was born to parents who were free.  Unfortunately, her mother died when she was only three years old.  That’s sad.

 

In those days it was considered a crime to teach a slave to read and write, but since she was free her uncle taught her these things and lots more.  When she was fourteen, she got a job with a white family.  They had a big library and let her read any book she wanted. 

 

Do you ever go the library?  Well, in those days libraries like we have now didn’t exist, and even if there were such things, Black people wouldn’t have been allowed to use them.  So Frances was very lucky to work for this family who had a lot of books and who let her read them.

 

When Frances grew up, she became an abolitionist and a women's rights advocate.  Do you know what that means?   That means that she worked for the end to slavery and for women to have equal rights with men. 

 

Do you think this was an easy thing to do?  If you wanted to work for people’s rights, how would you do it?

 

What Frances did was to travel around and give speeches.  In those days not many women gave public speeches.  For an African American woman to do this was almost unheard of.  In fact, people had trouble believing that she was an African American woman.  Some reporters even said she was really a man dressed up like a woman—or that she was a white woman who had painted her face black!

 

Frances became a Unitarian when she lived in Philadelphia.  She wrote Sunday school materials and poems—like the one we used for our chalice lighting—and she wrote novels.  In fact, she was the most widely read African American writer in the late 19^th century.

 

We should all be very proud that this great woman was part of our Unitarian Universalist heritage.  I hope someday you will read one of her book.  Her novels have been re-published by Beacon Press, so they are easy to find.   You might even ask in you library if they have any books by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

 

 

READING       from "The Battle of Life,” by Mary Livermore

 

This reading is from a speech by Mary Livermore, a Universalist woman, born in Boston in 1820, and widely known in her day as the Queen of the Platform.  During the Civil War she served as a coordinator of the Sanitary Commission, a precursor of the Red Cross.  She made many trips to the battlefield, visited military hospitals, raised money for supplies and helped injured soldiers return home.  During the four years of that war, she led in organizing over 3000 local aid societies.  Having experienced the horrors of war firsthand, she believed that it was time for humanity to develop alternative ways to deal with conflict.  Here is what she said in her famous speech, “The Battle of Life,” delivered to hundreds of audiences in the late 19^th century: 

 

We are approaching the era when war shall be no more.  The world is ready for it.  Unconsciously, and unintentionally, the powers that be have been preparing for it.  For they have increased the destructive power of the enginery of war so marvelously, that the nations employing it against each other will both suffer almost irreparable injury.  When a handful of men can blow up a navy, and another handful can annihilate an army, war ceases to be war, and become assassination.  If we should wake tomorrow to find that all civilized armies were to be disbanded, all fortifications to be dismantled, and the giant battleships transformed into vessels for peaceful uses, how much the world would gain by the change! 

 

The prophecy of two thousand years ago that there should be "peace on earth and good-will to [all]" would begin to be verified.  Between two and three billions of dollars, now wrung annually from the people for military purposes, would not then be called for, and would increase the resources of the masses, and add to their material comforts.  How the certainty that war had ceased forever would loosen the brakes now held down on the wheels of the world's progress!

 

 

SERMON:  “Learn the Art of War No More”

 

A century ago, in what was then the new Beacon religious education program, Ella Lyman Cabot wrote:

We sometimes speak as if the past were over and done with: “That’s past; that’s out of date; that’s ended.”  Yet try to obliterate in your thought all that is past.  It is impossible, of course, because in so doing we obliterate ourselves.  Without the help of what we call the past we could not live at all.

The past, instead of being done with, is, then, the real fiber of the world as we know it.  Just as the food we eat nourishes us till it becomes what we act with, so the past is always what we think with. . . .[1]

 

Even in this new century and new millennium we seem unable to figure out any other way besides war to respond to tragedies like September 11^th and the ongoing threats of terrorism that plague our world.  Perhaps one of the reasons we have difficulty imagining any way other than war to create justice and peace is that the past we think with is missing some major pieces that might help us consider alternatives.  The past most of us think with is generally missing the lives and wisdom of women who organized and worked for peace.  Today I’d like to begin filling in those gaps by introducing you to some Unitarian Universalist women who dedicated their lives to making peace a reality. 

 

Our country is once again at war.  To do our part to bring about peace, I believe we need to know about people like us who have acted to create a more peaceful world.  I hope that their stories will help us figure out what we can do to bring forth a world in which we need not learn the art of war anymore.

 

A photograph that hangs on my wall at home helps inspire my own work for peace.  It is over 100 years old, taken in 1890 at the first meeting of the International Council of Women.  There are 27 women in the picture, from 8 different countries.  I can identify six of the women as definitely either Universalists or Unitarians.  There may be more. 

 

Two are ministers, the Rev. Ada Bowles, whose ministry took her from Universalist churches in Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, and later to North Carolina, and the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, who has the distinction of being the first woman ordained by a congregation and who later became a Unitarian.  Laura Ormiston Chant was not ordained but was one of the first women to preach in churches in England.  Victoria Richardson was a delegate from the Midwest, representing the Western Woman’s Unitarian Conference.  One of the best-known suffrage leaders, Susan B. Anthony, was also there.  The sixth woman is May Wright Sewall, one of the key organizers of the International Council. 

 

May Sewall outlined the purpose of the new organization as being the sharing of guidance and making of “united pronouncements and appeals for common action in matters of social leadership toward a Better Common Life.”[2]  This was the first time women from different countries had ever come together to work for justice and peace.  Their gathering is all the more remarkable when we realize that in none of these countries did women have the right to vote.  But they didn’t let that stop them from doing something.  They knew that they had some power, and that by working together they could have greater impact than any of them could have alone. 

 

By forming an international women’s organization, they affirmed that “the best good of our homes and nations will be advanced by our own greater unity of thought, sympathy and purpose, and that an organized movement of women will best conserve the highest good of the family and State...” They agreed, therefore, to “band together in a confederation of workers committed to the overthrow of all forms of ignorance and injustice, and to the application of the Golden Rule to society, custom, and law.”[3]

 

Early on, the Council adopted a resolution committing its members to peace and arbitration as the means for resolving disputes.  They took this commitment to non-violence seriously.  So when the various armed conflicts began that were to lead to the First World War, they called a meeting at The Hague in 1915.  This remarkable gathering of over 1500 women included representatives from many countries, some of whom were already at war with each other.  The women struggled to overcome their differences and managed to reach agreement on a plan to bring about peace by instituting continuous mediation. 

 

Unitarian Emily Greene Balch was chosen as one of the envoys to carry out this plan.  She traveled to Russia and to neutral Scandinavian countries and later conferred with British leaders and with President Woodrow Wilson.  Although world leaders were not yet ready to listen to the women's peace plan, Emily continued her efforts to find ways to avoid the violence and destruction of war.  Because of her activities and her radical associates in this work, the trustees of Wellesley College, where she was a sociology professor, voted not to renew her appointment.  At age fifty-two, she faced life without the security of a job but proceeded nevertheless to work for the cause of peace. 

 

In 1919 Emily traveled to Zurich for another important meeting of the International Congress of Women, where they issued the first published criticisms of the Versailles Treaty, which you may recall from history set the context for growing unrest leading to World War II.  The Congress took another important step at that meeting and became a permanent organization, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.  Emily became the first paid staff member, setting up an office in Geneva and making the organization's primary focus the study and elimination of the causes of war.

 

For her important work, Emily Greene Balch became the second woman in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  She also received a lifetime achievement award from the American Unitarian Association.  In her Nobel Prize acceptance speech she said:

We are not asked to subscribe to any utopia or to believe in a perfect world.  We are asked to equip ourselves with courage, hope, and readiness for hard work, and to cherish large and generous ideals.[4]

 

The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom continues its work today.  They have consultative status with the United Nations through the Economic and Social Council. They have a website and local groups on every continent.  They speak out on important issues of our time, about human rights, the current situation in Iraq, and abuses of power by corporations.  They publish books and reports and make resources on women and peace available around the world.  And they will be holding an international conference in Sweden in August of this year. 

 

All this grew from the efforts of a handful of women, women who could no longer sit idly by and watch the world be destroyed by injustice and war.  It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed by the misery of the world.  Watching the nightly news on television one gets the impression that there is very little hope.  What can an average citizen do?

 

Lorain Evelyn Kadish is one of those average citizens who decided to figure out some way to make a difference.  As she put it, “I would not respect myself if I simply did nothing.”  Lorain is over 90 now and lives in Arizona in a retirement home.  I had the privilege of meeting Lorain last May.

 

When Lorain moved to Phoenix with her family in the late 1950s, she decided to join the UU church and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an international interfaith organization that works to promote understanding among the people of the world.  One of their important programs involved arranging for Russian and American families to meet during the Cold War, at a time when government leaders of the two countries barely spoke to each other.  When the Vietnam War began, Lorain joined the Tempe Peace Center and stood vigil outside the Federal Court Building every Wednesday at noon to protest United States’ involvement.  At the UUA General Assembly in 1967 she learned about the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and became an active member of her local chapter when she returned to Phoenix.  In 1978, Lorain gathered a group of 50 people to meet with Maggie Kuhn who inspired them to form a chapter of the Gray Panthers, with meetings held at the local UU church.

 

Lorain obviously understood the value of working with organizations.  Through her leadership the important work of international associations became a reality in her local community.  She also helped to found a new organization, Women to End War in the World.  In 1981 UU minister the Rev. Billie Rose Wright wrote a letter to “the women of the world,” calling for women to work together to end war.  Loraine sent and personally carried thousands of Billie’s letters to women around the world that she met in her travels and in her work with other organizations.

 

In 1988 a group of her friends decided to nominate Lorain for the Adin Ballou Peace Award, given annually by the UU Peace Fellowship in honor of our Universalist forbear whose writings inspired Tolstoy and through him Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  The nomination papers described Lorain as having formed “friendships for peace everywhere.”  It occurs to me that this is something any of us can do.  No matter where we are or how confident we are about making a difference, all of us can form friendships for peace.  We can reach out to our neighbors.  We can talk about peace with our friends and families.  We can encourage others to consider ways to create a more peaceful world, and we can empower each other to take action in large or small ways wherever we are.

 

At age 72, Lorain chose to take her actions for peace and justice to another level.  She decided to follow the example of Unitarian Henry David Thoreau and commit civil disobedience.  She joined four others in protesting the first nuclear chain-reaction at a new nuclear power plant in her area.  After the chief executive officer of the nuclear facility refused to meet with the group to hear about the dangers of nuclear power, they chained themselves to the front door of the Arizona Public Service Building and to each other.  They were all arrested and put on trial, making Lorain the oldest citizen “to ever be bundled off to a police station for protesting her beliefs with her body,” as one reporter put it.  “I never expected to be arrested,” Lorain explained to the reporter, “but I felt so strongly about this that it overcame all the fright I had.” 

 

Lorain had been concerned about the development of nuclear power in her community for many years, but, as she explained to the reporter:

I didn’t do much about it then because I didn’t know anybody else who was concerned.  A similar paralysis still grips most people today, so they sit back and hold their breath and hope nothing happens….

People who saw me on the news have stopped me in the streets or in the store and they say, “Oh, I saw you on television—I think what you did was wonderful.  And if you had the courage to do something like that, I should have the courage also.”[5] 

 

What was true then is still true today.  We can, and must, take action in support of our beliefs.  Like Lorain Kadish and Emily Balch, and like the women who formed the International Council of Women, we need to put our faith into action.  Perhaps remembering the lives and work of folks like these can help us get us past that paralysis Lorain spoke of.  As we form friendships for peace, perhaps we will find the courage to help our troubled world “learn the art of war no more.”

 

As Unitarian Edward Everett Hale put it many years ago:

I am only one

But still I am one.

I cannot do everything,

But still I can do something

And because I cannot do everything

I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

 

May we do the things that we can do to help make it possible for the world to “learn the art of war no more.”      Amen.  Blessed Be.

 

 

BENEDICTION

 

Our benediction is by Universalist minister Olympia Brown, from a sermon she gave at the end of what was called at the time “the war to end all wars.”

 

We can never make the world safe by fighting. 

Every nation must learn that the people of all nations are children of God, and must share the wealth of the world. 

You may say this is impracticable, far away,

can never be accomplished,

but it is the work we are appointed to do. 

Sometime, somehow, somewhere, we must ever teach this great lesson.

 

May we be the ones to teach this great lesson, and may this be the time that the world finally hears.  May the day come soon when it will be possible to learn the art of war no more. Amen.  Blessed Be.