On a cold day in January 1983, I sat on a bus in Beirut, Lebanon, stunned by my inability to speak. I was with a handful of my fellow Americans who had been invited by Americans for Middle East Understanding and others to visit the region to learn more about what was happening there with our Palestinian siblings.
I never had been in a war zone before, and it was shocking to see the buildings with windows blown out and walls with bullets lodged in them. But the most stunning of all were the enormous mountain-like graves that could be seen from most vantage points in Beirut that contained the bodies of massacred Palestinians who had been killed in the Sabra and Shatila camps where they had lived in relative safety until their protecters, the Palestinian Liberation Organization soldiers, left Beirut.
Catherine Meeks
We spent most of the day going to a hospital where we saw children with major injuries, including missing arms and legs, others who were not wounded but had no place to live except outdoors with no type of shelter. I did not speak all day. I was stunned by the weight of it all.
Now, here I am 42 years later sitting in my study feeling stunned like so many others as I try to make sense of the war on decency and order that is being perpetrated by this current administration which is completely void of any hint of caring about the people for whom it is supposed to be serving.
It is stunning and there is a great temptation to retreat to silence. My understanding of that deep desire to simply put your head down until the madness disappears helps me have a small amount of compassion for the folks who seem to be choosing that path; but that compassion does not lead me to excuse their behavior. I know silence is not a choice I can make.
The loud silence resounding across America at the moment is much more deafening than my experience of it while riding on that bus in Beirut all of those years ago. It is hard to know what to say. It is hard to know where to begin, and it is difficult to get past being stunned, outraged and grief struck about what is happening to us here and to others around the globe.
And along with this reaction it is difficult to avoid becoming immobilized in a manner that might be illustrated best by this image a friend shared with me this morning when we were talking about the horrors we are facing. My friend said, “It is a bit like a rabbit being immobilized by a cobra.” The rabbit has the capacity to act but being startled by the snake leads to its confusion about how to act and it becomes immobile. The silence that has fallen across our country is reflected in this image.
“When are the folks charged with standing up to the empire going to remember their call and stand up with a resounding voice?”
Why are our religious leaders not speaking or speaking so quietly? Why are they not speaking with one voice about the immorality, lawlessness and plundering going on? I believe the Scripture calls this behavior “spiritual wickedness in high places.” Thus, I am continuing to try to understand what the loud silence is about and, even more importantly, I am wondering when it is coming to a close. When are the folks charged with standing up to the empire going to remember their call and stand up with a resounding voice?
Along with the silent religious leaders are the elected officials who swore to uphold the Constitution when they took office. What is the matter with them? Why their silence? I hope they will see the consequences of their silence when it is time for the people to speak in elections again. I hope they find their voice before the republic is completely gone!
It seems many of the folks who thought this administration was going to be so good for everyone are becoming slowly aware of their mistake as they see their jobs disappear, prices rise and all the things that are being done to make the country sicker, poorer, less powerful, meaner and less able to be the home of the brave and the land of the free. Yet they are silent now also.
Silence is not a choice in this matter. The loud voice of silence calls us to action.
We must listen to that call. Howard Thurman tells us, we have to search for the sound of the genuine in ourselves which makes it possible to recognize it in others. Well, when we hear that still small voice inside ourselves that comes from the core of our genuineness demanding the silence be broken, change will come.
The desire to be free and to live in a world where dignity, integrity, truth-telling, care, generosity, beauty, hope, peace and respect for all life is greater than all of the dark forces coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days. We all have to act. We have to practice collective agency.
Be a half shade braver!
Catherine Meeks was given the President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement and Service Award in August 2022; was listed by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the 500 women to watch in Georgia in 2022; retired as the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies at Mercer University; is a community and wellness activist and mid\wife to the soul; and the author of The Night Is Long, But Light Comes In The Morning, Meditations on Racial Healing, She previously served as founding executive director of Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing and currently serves as founder and executive director of the Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing. She lives in Atlanta.