my choice

NEW WOMAN – ME!  no 5

I am a free woman
even though I have made my choice
nothing has been decided by me – has it?
I could still say “no”….
disappear from the limelight
into an eternal forgetting

however, I myself
have already been chosen,
my destiny has been decided
I must keep saying “yes”,
for all to see and in the limelight
to shoulder the task entrusted to me

© Tina van Lieshout
translation John Wijngaards

Historical note:  Tina came from a simple farmer’s family in Brabant. I believe that Tina wrote this poem when she finally decided to take the Church to court, first before a county magistrate, then on national level in the Netherlands, and finally at the European Court of Human Rights.  John Wijngaards

MEDITATIONS

  • the force of time
  • I accuse women
  • I accuse men
  • my inner struggle
  • past present future
  • my dream
  • and God saw that it was very good
  • phallus worship
  • on the way

Tina van Lieshout was a Dutch Catholic woman who felt called to the priesthood. Her diocese refused her admission to the priestly formation programme which she challenged in high-profile court cases. She lost. Being both a gifted artist and poet, she described her despair in a series of paintings and meditations. But she also expressed through them her determination to realise her potential as a free and equal person.  Her work was published in the Dutch book Ook in de Naam van de Moeder en de Dochter [= ‘Also in the Name of the Mother and the Daughter’], Wilco, Amersfoort 2000. She died in 2010.