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Good Morning, How do we find and listen to the voices that have been silenced? Pioneering publisher and writer Carmen Callil ,who recently died, started the first feminist publishing company, Virago in her attic apartment in 1973. With her female colleagues, she published new writing but also brought back the voices of women lost in history: soon lining bookshelves with their green spines and apple logo’s. Suddenly, generations had access to women’s life experience, opinions, imagination and philosophies bringing half of the population of that time visible as a cohort. During the same period Christian thinkers reclaimed women such as Mary Magdalene who was hidden in plain sight by pope Gregory I’s declaration that her only role was as a redeemed prostitute, now seen by many as the disciple to the disciples. And Christian liberation Theology, started in Latin America, brought a focus on Jesus’ inclusivity of women, slaves, tax collectors, the poor and people of other religions. Psychologist Gabore Mate describes trauma being accompanied with silence and that this infects our culture. He describes the collective silence that accompanies war, pandemics, oppression’s, poverty and disasters and argues that what fills the void is fear, illness, addiction prejudice and violence. To not listen, no matter how privileged you are, is to court a path of inevitable difficulties for everyone. We can see that clearly in how we listen to climate change. It is for good reason that Carmen Callil was known to be fierce; it can be painful and disruptive to bring out silenced voices. Some accept new insight while others feel challenged and try to destroy it. Like many, I became a priest when women did not have an equal voice and were officially led by a man. I was asked to cut my hair, wear a trouser suit, not sing the bible as my voice didn’t have the authority of masculine sound, and more. But although our bookshelves are now full of women writers and the Anglican Church now allows women Bishops, there is still work to do for women and indeed all who are excluded. Carmen Callil was able to stand on the treacherous cliff-edge of silence and reach out to the exiled whilst fighting like a tiger to get them heard in the noise of culture. It was her tenacious belief in a common good that fuelled her strength. Hopefully we can build on that legacy and listen.
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