Elijah Meets God at Horeb
“Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
“Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper”
When Women Were Birds: Terry Tempest Williams
Each time I preside at table
I bear the weight
of countless generations of women
who persisted
so that I might hold up bread
and break it
no longer whispering
but confidently speaking
words of institution
words of inclusion
words of grace
“Broken for you“
Women who were subversive
Women who were creative
Women whose persistence
subversion
and creativity
made space
quietly disrupting
a narrow, one track
patriarchal vision
with infinite possibility
Women who, in the midst of darkness
kindled light
and in the grip of adversity
fostered resilience
As I take my place
at the table
these women
crowd in with me
lending their weight
to the words
no longer whispered
but spoken
in clear and ringing tones
Their weight is a feather weight
without burden
except that of compulsion
to continue to make space
for women
whose whisper
is still emerging
or for women
whose language
is still constrained
by millennia of noise
that still threatens
to drown out
the emergence
of a woman’s whisper.
No comments:
Post a Comment