Is someone you know in need of care and attention, who has just experienced a crisis, or is recovering from an addiction? The Samaritan Center for Counseling & Education is the place for them. Experienced professionals counsel people from all economic backgrounds and all situations that life has to offer. This non-profit provides service in family and marriage counseling, child counseling and individual counseling.

Offering a helping hand to hurting individuals and families, this organization seeks to help people to a place in life where they can find healing and can move on with their lives. Besides counseling services, they do this in other ways, including by offering career, academic and psychological testing. Psychiatric consultations are also available, as well as training for mental health professionals and those wanting to pursue the ministry.

For 25 years, this organization has been supported primarily through donations and volunteer efforts. Houstonians have benefited from the application of the mission statement to become healthy in mind, body and soul. A Christian organization, they adhere to example of Jesus Christ and accept people of every race and faith, as well as economic standing. They will accept a person into the program even if that person is unable to pay.

All counselors are certified professionals, and the organization is accredited by three leading psychology groups, including the American Psychological Association. Altogether, the program unites the connection between emotional, spiritual and mental well being. They consider this a process in renewing a whole person.

In the United States of America, the year was 1913 and the House of Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution to this effect in the month of May. This resolution requested that all government officials, including Congress and the President, wear a white carnation to recognize the mothers of the United States of America.

A year later on May 8, 1914, another resolution was passed in Congress that set aside the second Sunday in May as the official “Mother’s Day.” On this day, the US Flag should be displayed on all government buildings and homes as a “public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” This first proclamation was given by then President Woodrow Wilson.

Still, this isn’t exactly the beginning of the recognition of the efforts of mothers. According to popular histories, the first official observance of Mothers Day occurred on May 10, 1908. Church services held in Grafton, West Virginia and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania marked the day by wearing Carnations, the favorite flower of Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis’ mother. Anna Jarvis had requested the observance in honor of her departed mother. Tradition holds that white carnations are representative of mothers that have passed away and red carnations represent mothers that are still living.

Mrs. Jarvis’ efforts had been spurned by her own mother who had taught lessons in her Sunday School. During one of the lessons, Anna’s mother pronounced that, “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day. There are many days for men, but none for mothers.” The groundwork was laid by Mrs. Anna Jarvis who petitioned local businessmen and even Presidents Taft and Roosevelt to support her desire to recognize mothers.

Mrs. Jarvis saw her dream come to fruition, but over time merchants and businesses began capitalizing on the new national holiday. These businesses increasingly promoted material gifts, cards, presents and flowers to their customers. Such greedy materialism did not match the intent Anna Jarvis intended and she became increasingly frustrated with the practice. So much so that she filed a lawsuit in 1923 to halt a Mother’s Day festival. Later still, Mrs. Jarvis was arrested for disturbing the peace while trying to sell carnations at a war mother’s group. Ultimately Mrs. Jarvis died in 1948, full of regret for starting the mother’s day tradition.

However, long before there was an Mrs. Anna Jarvis, others had pressed for recognition of the plight of mothers. In Boston, in the year 1870, Julia Ward Howe (Author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”) issued her own proclamation in the name of peace.

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

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.

Perhaps Julia Ward Howe had actually been encouraged by the mother of the woman who eventually saw Mother’s Day become a National holiday. Prior to Julia Ward Howe’s proclamation, the mother of Mrs. Anna Jarvis (Mrs. Anna Reeves Jarvis), had been organizing Mother’s Work Days since 1858. The goal of these work days was to improve health and sanitation conditions in West Virginia communities. Her work continued through the United States Civil War when she encouraged women to care for casualties of that war. An increasing number of women and mothers became exposed to the dangers and destruction caused by modern means of warfare and soon meetings were held to attempt to bring peace back to the land.

With so much warfare continuing to be waged throughout the world today, perhaps we could set aside the materialistic side of mother’s day this year and return to the original intention. Let us remember the sacrifices of our wives and mothers and honor them by finding way to ease their suffering. Let us dedicate ourselves to opting first to find peaceful solutions rather than immediately going to war over disagreements.

Born at Mount Holly, New Jersey, on December 3, 1807, Gamaliel Bailey set out from his youth to be trained in the art of medicine. Just before his twentieth birthday, Gamaliel graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Later, Mr. Bailey combined his passion for medicine with another for writing and journalism. In 1831 he became the editor for the “Methodist Protestant.” Not long after moving to Cincinatti, Ohio, Gamaliel opened his own medical practice and began to teach upon the subject of physiology at Lane Theological Seminary.
While present at Lane Theological Seminary, Gamaliel was exposed to ongoing debates between the faculty and students concerning the institution of slavery. Upon much personal consideration, Gamaliel adopted the abolitionist ideals for himself and joined the staff of the “Philanthropist,” an abolitionist newspaper.

A year later, in 1837, Mr. Bailey assumed the role of editor, a postion he would retain for the next decade. His views on abolition and slavery did not go unnoticed and Gamaliel endured numerous threats to his life from the abolitionist opposition. Such threats were not in word only as on three occasions, the threats turned into actual violence as the Philanthropist office was broken into and the printing press destroyed.

Through his news press and political contexts, Gamaliel Bailey understood that politics could be a useful weapon against slavery. With his help in 1840, the Liberty Party was born and was joined by many prominent abolitionists. Gamaliel Bailey was selected as the Liberty Party’s Presidential candidate during the election of 1840. The party and candidacy were poorly organized however and was soon after diluted by the retreat of numerous members to other, more successful parties.

Determined to overcome such defeat, Gamaliel moved to Washington D.C. and once again enlisted in the propaganda campaign against slavery. As the editor of the “National Era,” Gamaliel was the first editor to publish Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Gamaliel’s health began to decline shortly thereafter and while he was traveling across the Atlantic towards Europe, he succumbed to his illness on June 5, 1859.

Further Reading

[amtap amazon:asin=0385522762]

“Ought it not be a Merry Christmas?

Even with all the sorrow that hangs, and will forever hang, over so many households; even while war still rages; even while there are serious questions yet to be settled – ought it not to be, and is it not, a merry Christmas?”
Harper’s Weekly, December 26, 1863

Although our blessed United States is not experiencing the hardship of an internal conflict of arms, there are many aspects of American life that may bring hardship to numerous families this holiday season. We can, however, look back upon our history to be able to reach a conclusion that,”Ought it not to be, and is it not, a merry Christmas?” Money, gifts, food, and perhaps even dear loved ones are not present this Christmas as they have been during Christmases past, but the center-piece of the holiday is a promise of hope, peace, joy and happiness. Piles of gifts and tables of lavish feasts may come and go, but remembering the birth of Jesus Christ in the midst of all the hustle-and-bustle or chaotic turmoil does bring with it a realization of something simpler, yet all too grand for the human imagination.

It is a common error to assume that Christmases past were much happier and simpler times, but we often fail to remember the hardships that others endured. A glimpse back in time should not be a melancholy misadventure, but instead reassure us that whatever may face us this Christmas, we will make it through, just as so many before us made it through.

Just as the families did during the Civil War, find the courage to put up that Christmas Tree and adorn it with cherished memories and perhaps even make some new ones to hang upon this year’s tree.

“In order to make it look much like Christmas as possible, a small tree was stuck up in front of our tent, decked off with hard tack and pork, in lieu of cakes and oranges, etc”. – Alfred Bellard, 5th New Jersey Infantry

If your loved one is in a distant land, pack them a box of items that will brighten their spirits. The Civil War soldier, receiving a package from home, would get a much needed moral, spiritual and emotional uplifting so desperately needed among the depredations of camp life.

Come together with family and friends and sing some traditional Christmastime hymns such as “Silent Night,” “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” “Away in the Manger,”  or “Deck the Halls.”

“I have written so much that it is now after 9 o’clock and yet I have said nothing of Turner’s and Mary Bell’s party which we gave them last week in lieu of the Santa Claus presents. Mary Bell has been told that Santa Claus has not been able to run the blockade and has gone to war–Yet at this late hour when I went upstairs Thursday night of the party I found that the trusting faith of childhood they had hung their little socks and stockings in case Santa Claus did come. I had given the subject no thought whatever, but invoking Santa Claus aid I was enabled when their little eyes opened to enjoy their pleasure to find cake and money in their socks.” – Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas of Augusta, Georgia

No matter what else you do to make your Christmas bright, remember to celebrate the very namesake of this holiday season, Jesus Christ. Call upon His name to bring peace, joy and happiness to you and your home this Christmas!

“By the Christmas Hearth”

Bring holly, rich with berries red,
And bring the sacred mistletoe;
Fill high each glass, and let hearts
With kindliest feelings flow;
So sweet it seems at home once more
To sit with those we hold most dear,
And keep absence once again
To keep the Merry Christmas here.

Harper’s Weekly, Christmas, 1865

More On Civil War Christmas

A Civil War Christmas – Joanne Shelby (Link has gone inactive)

Further Reading

[amtap amazon:asin=0452287693]
[amtap amazon:asin=0060013788]
[amtap amazon:asin=0961267046]