Reflection for June 20

My grandmothers were powerful women.... Neither ever suffered any problem she could not give a name to. There was no mention of silence in need of breaking. There was, to be sure, little silence at all. A division of labor, typical of their generation, did not require an abdication of power.... If their husbands had political and financial and large muscle advantage, the women had emotional and spiritual and demographic comeuppance. The realization that God could be female required the consideration that the Devil could be also. My grandmothers were inclined to leave well enough alone. For most women, of course, things were just not that well enough. (Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking.)