Violet Voices

It’s a struggle

by Barbara

I struggle with my loyalties at times. I have an innate loyalty deep in my soul for those in authority above me. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I spent twelve years in parochial schools - under the rule of the women in black dresses - and the men in equally black dresses. I was taught to respect authority, to pretty much believe unswervingly whatever I was taught. If it came from the people in those black dresses it must be TRUTH - spelled all in caps, of course.

Now here I sit as a 56-year-old mother of two grown daughters, Gramma to the brightest, most perfect grandchildren that I could have, wife of 37 years - and I’m questioning those loyalties.

I hear people daily who have NO problem lambasting our governing bodies, the very people for whom I was taught abject obeisance. It bothers me greatly that I cannot do the same thing. What is in me that shudders at being disrespectful to the office if not to the man sitting in the office? Why do I find it difficult to speak out against the atrocities of war - or poverty - or the fact that many don’t have enough money this week to purchase groceries OR gasoline?

Why am I unable to rant and rave at the government because of these things?

Do I like war? A hundred times NO! I grew up the daughter of a man who fought the Japanese - in “THE” war itself, and every night in his bed where he was “safe” from them. He fought them by beating my mother.

I grew up a teenager whose high school friends fought in Vietnam and either came home so changed I couldn’t be with them any longer or who didn’t come home at all - outside of a box.

I grew up as an aunt whose nephew went to Desert Storm. Young men and women from my own town went off to the same war. Some came back - thank God my nephew is one of those.

I grew up as a mother - awakened by a phone call from a son-in-law on 9-11 telling me to watch the TV - we were under attack - “make sure the guns are loaded, Mom, we’re next.” I listened for days afterward to the silence in the skies above my house - eerie, total, absolute silence.

I don’t like war - I grew up with it - and I am growing old with it. I long for peace - and yet I know that there can be no peace. That is what we are told by our God. There will be wars and rumors of wars. Men will rise up against their brothers, their fathers, their sons.
And, still I am loyal to the office of the President and pray for him and those around him. And trust in the God of the ages (not the god of the black dresses) and pray that He will hold us safe from harm.

The It’s a struggle by Violet Voices, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Written By: barbara
Posted under: Women's Voices .  Email This Post