A DOZEN TEMPTATIONS
She is the temptress, pulling and corrupting and corroding-weakening the strong with her will, and her potion. She is for all of her guilt, innocent; she can not avoid her definition.
She, a challenge to the strong without any perceived strength of her own, she is bait-a voluptuous lieutenant in the serpent's army.
Without merit from a passing glimpse at history this limitation has prevailed in spite of time, and perhaps because of time. Honored traditions require endurance, their only qualification.
Bondage, bigotry, ignorance and apathy: enduring and formidable enemies to the single charge of enlightenment.
But to enlightenment goes the advantage; the truth is obvious and uncomplicated. Unrestricted in its access, the reality can be seen by desiring to view it.
We are not the disadvantaged gender, serving our time and our men as the result of our inferiority. We possess equally the capacity for success and failure, genius and ignorance.
We excel in spite of what is expected. We demonstrate our bravery and insight. We survive the questions of our validity-the challenge of our value.
Our greatest contributors have not looked to temptation as a rival to her virtue, but rather as a mirror into which her curiosity and yearnings are reflected. They have trusted their powers of discernment, not rumors of their inclination.
Without such visionaries our history, the history of all, would suffer an unimaginable devastation.
We, the successors to a powerful past, are held accountable for a history that does not exist. Held responsible for our sins by those whose sins have equalled and surely surpassed our own.
Our most threatening temptation: to acquiesce.