The story goes something like this: I was a toddler, long before the days of safety seats for children, and thus I was standing between my parents in the front seat of the car. My dad was driving and it was pretty easy to “peal out” on the gravel of township road 22, the road intersecting with our driveway. My vocal response was “Rummm!!! Down the road we go!” This story was repeated a number of times in the life of my family. It may not seem like much to you, but to my mom it meant I had just brazenly called out my dad. Was it my personality or was it that I was the only daughter? Probably both. My mother called me “spunky” on several occasions. It basically meant that I had words and I was not afraid to voice them. Later in life, I learned that this is a rare privilege for a female, no matter where she is born in the world.
This of course brings me to the power of words. We like to deny the power of words. But if words hold no power, then why go to the trouble of silencing the poor, the immigrant, the child, the girl? God is quite clear about the power of words. “God said, ‘Let there be light!’ and there was light!” According to the first chapter of Genesis, God spoke the world into existence. For God to speak is for God to act.
May God speak on your behalf and listen to your beloved cries.
