I Will Not Be Silent

" For Zion's sake, I will not be silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not be quiet, until her vindication shines forth like the dawn and her victory like a burning torch. Nations shall behold your vindication, and all the kings your glory; you shall be called a new name pronounced by the mouth of the Lord, a royal diadem held by your God. No more shall people call you "Forsaken", or your land "Desolate", but you shall be called "My Delight", and your land "Espoused". For the Lord delights in you and makes your land His spouse. As a young man marries a maiden, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you." [Isaiah: 62: 1-5].

For the Lord's sake, I will not be silent. For God's sake, I will not be quiet! These are such powerful words.

For, during long years, I did go silent. As a child in a cruel and abusive home, I gradually disappeared. And it seemed that no one noticed that I had systematically withdrawn.

I had a mother who, upon hearing my complaints of verbal abuse said, 'You are too sensitive.' I stopped going to her for "help".   

She said, "If you do not cry or get angry, the taunting will stop." I was to give my tormentor "nothing to go on". So I stopped showing emotion. I set my face like a rock, a hard and impenetrable stone.

The abuse continued. So next, I stopped feeling emotion. It was as if, in my childish reasoning, I thought humans could see through me into my very soul and detect what I was feeling. So I shut down my feelings. I became numb.

But the abuse continued on. I spent many hours in my room. I thought, if only I could hide there until dinner and bedtime. I lavished detailed attention on my homework, in order to stretch the time I spent in seclusion. But my tormentor would booby trap my room with raw eggs. I could not lay my head on my pillow or put on my slippers or open my closet door, without finding a trap.

And so, I escaped outside. I thought maybe the children in the neighborhood who would treat me kindly. But my tormentor incited the neighborhood children against me, and they would chant insults at me until I ran away.

I became like a frightened bunny forced to flee. I hid in the forsythia bush that sheltered me under its cool branches in the summer. In the winter, I created strong bricks out of snow and built myself a fortress, where I sat for hours, hunched down in the icy cold.  I wanted to live in that igloo. But as the sun sank low in the sky, I was very defeated, when I realized that I had to come in from the cold.

By age ten, I had stopped speaking. Some have suggested to me today that I stopped speaking because the facility for speech in the brain is located near the locus of trauma. Others have wondered, when I say that I stopped speaking, is that merely a metaphor or an allegory?

It is no metaphor. Nor was it an accident of trauma. I ceased to speak on purpose. It was a conscious decision. I reasoned, maybe if I engaged with no one and spoke to no one, the world would all just leave me alone. I had taken a vow of silence. I had given up on the power of humanity to care, to love.

But the abuse continued. At around age ten or eleven, I started bargaining over my food choices. I would eat applesauce but only if it was cold.  I would eat whole grain toast but not cereal. Soon, I was really eating very little at all. When I refused to eat, no one seemed alarmed. The family believed me when I said that I was not hungry. But the real hunger here was a gnawing at the soul. I had given up on the power of humans to nourish me. But worse, I had given up on myself.

Then my chronic lung disease took a bad turn, and I was having difficulty breathing. I had essentially ceased to live: not eating, not speaking, not breathing, not feeling, wanting no one and nothing.

It has been a long, dark journey back from the brink.

My wise counselor began first by telling me that I must speak. No longer was I allowed to remain silent.

I have come to believe in my heart that Silence breeds Evil.  In John 3: 18, Jesus said, " This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light, because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light, for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the Truth comes into the Light." 

In Acts 18: 9, the Lord came to St. Paul in a vision, saying, " Do not be afraid, keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you."

We are all called to speak the Truth!  We are all called to openly despair when our children are gunned down in school; when nations bomb their own citizens; when our brothers and sisters in other countries do not have enough to eat; when a homeless American man living out in the cold has no socks or warm boots; when the lives of 6.5 million unborn babies are sacrificed to abortion; when the inalienable right to religious freedom is dismissed as irrevelant and even illegal.

I have come to believe in the power of Peace, not violence. I have come to believe in the power of Love, not hate. I have come to believe in the power of  goodness, not evil.

I have begun to live by the words of Romans 12: 9-21:  to " Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.  . . . .[to] bless those who persecute, bless but not curse. . . [to not] repay anyone evil for evil. . ."  My mantra is "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Above all, I follow what Martin Luther King, Jr. said:  " He who accepts evil, without protesting against it, is really cooperating with it. In the end, we will remember, not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."  

May you always speak the Truth and seek the Light. And in doing so, may God rejoice, and delight in You.

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