Monday while every radio host, TV host and media outlet in America was pounding the airways with commentary on the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, I was meeting a woman who changed the world. It would seem a very insignificant story to most, but to me, it was just the hope and light I needed on such a dark day.
The setting was a kitchen table in Omaha, Nebraska as 15 parents and grandparents shared their concerns with America’s educational system; discussing what could be done about it. Based on the recently published article “Who’s to Blame for Charlottesville” outlining how government schools are full of anti-American rhetoric, political propaganda and even promote racism in the classroom, they have reason to be concerned.But while everyone else is focusing on anger, violence and the blame game for political gain, I see a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel.
One of the women in the meeting I attended expressed her concerns that her grandchildren weren’t learning or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school; that they didn’t know the National Anthem. Then one day her little granddaughter came to visit and while there, sang the National Anthem word for word. The grandmother was surprised and thrilled. She told her granddaughter how beautifully she sang and impressed that she got every word just right. “Did you learn it in school?” she excitedly asked.
“No Grandma,” the little girl said, “I memorized it for you.”
And there it was—the beautiful light in the darkness; the hope of our future—the influence of mothers and grandmothers on tender hearts that can literally change the world.
When I see violence like that in Charlottesville erupt, I think of that mother in Baltimore who dragged her son from the violent mob where he was throwing rocks at police and swatted him all the way home. She not only saved her son from destroying his life, she inspired an entire nation. She was just one woman, one mother, who refused to lose her son.
Motherhood is the great unifier. We all want the same things. We want our children to be safe. We want them to be healthy, to get a good education, and to be happy—which in mom language means being able to provide for themselves and be a good person. All mothers want those same things. It is that desire that leads to our greatest influence as women.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen expressed the nature and powerful influence of women when he said, "To a great extent the level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood. When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, and goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women."
We have the power to say no; to say enough! Even Rush Limbaugh gets it. A woman called into his show saying “the future is female” as if it never was.
“I’ve got news for you,” said Rush, “the world’s always been run by women. In civilized society, women have the ultimate power. It’s women who say “no,” in civilized society. That’s what you feminists never have understood… Ask any husband! You always have run the show.”
It is women who have the power...the power to say no. No, you can't behave that way. No, you can't have access to me without the commitment of marriage. No, you can't expect my support if you abandon your duty. We also have the power to say yes. Yes, you can earn my respect. Yes, you are worthy to be my companion. Yes, I will stand strong at your side.
A woman's power to decide stands as the foundation of civilization, and always has.
We are the ones that set the standard of decency and humanity and civilization will only rise as high as the bar we set. It is time to raise that bar and raise it high! We can’t fight darkness with darkness but we can turn on a beacon of light and flood the nation with the light of mothers who stand for truth, love God, reverence family, and cherish freedom.
What Hitler and Stalin did in one generation for evil, the mothers of America can do in one generation for good.
In the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
It is time for the mothers of America to rise up and say enough! There is enough darkness in the world. It is time to turn on the light!