I love kids, and am happy in their world or with one on my knee. I can also write white papers, sales talks, and argumentative essays. What I can't do is to write the language of logic and of love at the same time. I can be surrounded by the murmur of loving voices, and that allows me to concentrate on logic, in other words to be totally absent. But to be present to the voices and the logic, at once, I just can't do. Women, certain women, many women, seem to have this gift of blending care and reason, and without it, what chance do our communities have?
In a recent meeting, the topic of women's philanthropy came up, and all present, men and women both, fell into a meditative silence. A wordy meeting with flipcharts and all, went silent, like the silence among friends, who communicate without words.
Women have learned how to do what I do better than I. I have not yet been able to do what women do weaving reason and love. When the frame shifts, and it is women who set the tone, a tone they may now reserve for women among women, there will be hope for something that will outlast our dead shells.
We came from the sea, pulled by the moon. The womb is a portable ocean. In that envelop the tiny creature swims, recapitulating evolution. No wonder when women's philanthropy came up we present had nothing to say, but a sigh.
