SHE WAS WARNED, AN EXPLANATION WAS GIVEN......
NEVERTHELESS SHE PERSISTED
So said the US Senator, Mitch McConnell of Senator Elizabeth Warren who was intent on reading out a letter written in 1986 by Coretta Scott King....
This link takes you to Scottish Singer/ Songwriter Karine Polwart and a deeply thoughtful interview:
Another woman 'nevertheless persisting'...
There are times I find myself appalled, hurting and angry at the pain we seem intent on inflicting on so many. It seems that history has shown us time and again our capacity for this.
And history has also shown us the
'greater, extraordinary compassionate' humanity, nevertheless persisting.
In the conversations with and about Women of Wit, Wisdom & Wonder, it is in the actions and being of individuals that I find awe and wonder. The seeds, the shafts of light that grow, build, expand to reveal our better selves, that move us beyond what we dreamt was possible.
I listen to my recording of Mma Nobuntu in a South African Township. She took children off the street into her sitting room when their mothers had to work. That was, unknown to her at the time, seeding, by the time some years later when we met, a whole compound. A space that became:
- A safe house for raped and abused women
- A full time nursery, teaching and caring for the smallest children, many living there, arriving traumatised, starving, terrified
- Training for women so they can be economically independent
- And much more - including raising every coin to make this happen
In Mma's words
'You must do the things you think you can't do'
I'm reminded of Margaret Anstee who in a way turned the persisting on its head - as a young woman persistently refusing to learn to type... Her Memoir, 'Never Learn To Type' (2003), is a wonderful exposition of the life of the first woman to become an Under Secretary General at the UN. Born in 1926 she died last August and was a fascinating raconteur of a life well and persistently lived. Her seed, her 'shaft of light' she said in our conversation, was her grandmother - whose energy saw her through loosing her career when she married (the norm in those days), divorce, danger, gender prejudice and much more.
'Nevertheless persisting'
