Perhaps many of us carry within a wounded child, carefully guarded. In the following paragraph from her book All about Love: New Visions, bell hooks (1950-2021) illuminates this child:
“…the wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.”
May we feel safe within our Winchester UU congregation to be gentle and generous truth tellers of our experiences of history, systems, community, and each other.
—Gloria Legvold, for the Racial Justice Team Planning Group