resistance

In the quiet back streets of Santiago, women are called to resist. 
The verb, resistir can mean to endure as well as to challenge. Gloria Anzaldúa observes:

Wailing is the Indian, Mexican and Chicana woman's feeble protest when she has no other recourse. These collective wailing rites may have been a sign of resistance in a society which glorified the warrior and war and for whom the women of the conquered tribes were booty (1987: 33).

How do we resist dominant (damaging) cultures and what they demands of us? How do we speak out, for example, in our churches; interrupting denial and the silencing of change? How do we suggest that being Christian does not require accepting the myth of life-giving death, does not prohibit abortion, does not equal family values, does not mean being better or right?

We may only be able to wail. We may only be able to stencil the city walls. We may only be able to refuse to go along with what is expected. We may be able to do more or less. It may take all we have simply to endure. But we must resist.

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Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/ La frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute Books.