Passing Words: Gloria Steinem

The soul was serious and unassuming, engaged in conversation with others in line; it did not pay much heed to how quickly the intakes were going. Peter made several announcements, and the Pearly Gates opened and closed repeatedly, but the soul was not riveted by any of that; it was engrossed in conversations about lives that had been lived and what had been learned. "We'll be right with you," Peter said to the soul (expecting relief). "And you can take someone else if we're not done talking here," it said without turning around. He smiled, because that had been the soul's way all along - with a stern kind of emotional intelligence that called others to justice (not caring much if you liked it or not).

In memory of Gloria Marie Steinem, who passed on September 2nd at the age of 92.

Steinem was a journalist and activist who became a pivotal figure in the feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Steinem reacted strongly to being called "an icon", pushing back hard on how it minimized the contribution of others equally as engaged based on race, class, and background. Steinem's work was polarizing for some, but she accepted and (in some ways) valued that as a means to keep the conversation going; for Steinem, using one's voice to tell one's story was everything.