The Last to Speak
by Jaci Turner
Some truths arrive early—
in the quiet hearts of people
who feel the shift in the room
before anyone else names it.
We heard it in his voice,
the way a storm tells its own future
by the shape of the wind.
Nothing hidden.
Nothing coy.
🧵
The danger was right there,
unblinking.
But institutions move
like old sanctuaries—
heavy stone,
cold steps,
an echo that takes its time
coming back.
A pastor spoke of mercy
on Inauguration Day,
her voice a lantern
in the middle of noon.
But one lantern
doesn’t move a building.
One voice
doesn’t turn a council.
They waited.
Debated.
Measured their words
against the fear
of being called political,
against the weight
of their own divisions.
Some hoped the storm
would quiet itself.
Some didn’t want
to anger the people in the pews.
Some were simply afraid
to be the first to speak.
And so the months went by—
eleven of them—
until the silence itself
became a kind of wound,
and even the sanctuaries
could feel the heat
of children taken,
families broken,
mercy rewritten as threat.
Nov 17, 2025 15:42Only then
did the Church find its voice.
Not because the truth was new,
but because it could no longer
pretend not to hear it.
Some truths arrive early.
Some arrive late.
But the earliest ones
always begin
in the ordinary hearts
of people who see clearly
long before the world catches up.
