First Things RSS Feed - Camille S. Williams https://www.firstthings.com/author/camille-s-williams en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:51:40 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/camille-s-williams 60 Sparrows and Lilies https://www.firstthings.com/article/1993/08/sparrows-and-lilies https://www.firstthings.com/article/1993/08/sparrows-and-lilies Sun, 01 Aug 1993 00:00:00 -0400 When I was pregnant with my first child, I asked my mother about labor. This woman who gave birth to her first on her own kitchen table (her mother and mother-in-law in attendance) hardly looked up from her work to say, “It’s not that bad.” Though she nearly bled to death after the birth of each of her children, she said little more when I asked for details. She did indicate that the labor was actually harder on my father. I thought she was joking, but he confirmed her account of his dismay at her experience. He decided after the first labor that he could never put her through that again—they should have no more children. As their fifth child, I’ve always been grateful my mother changed my father’s mind.

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]]> Abortion and the Actualized Self https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/11/abortion-and-the-actualized-self https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/11/abortion-and-the-actualized-self Fri, 01 Nov 1991 00:00:00 -0500 The Choices We Made (Angela Bonavoglia, 1990) is the latest collection of sympathetic abortion narratives, a genre Gloria Steinem refers to as “populist truth-telling,” “the heart and soul of movements and revolutions all over the world.” As may be expected from a book excerpted in Ms , many of the narrators are notables—Grace Paley, Elizabeth Janeway, Polly Bergen, Whoopi Goldberg—and few believe that their decisions to abort were wrong.

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]]> Scene From a Living Room https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/12/scene-from-a-living-room https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/12/scene-from-a-living-room Sat, 01 Dec 1990 00:00:00 -0500 In that house of quiet dying, through still sheers that
turn
the day to gray,
only two chairs of six are sat upon, the bed
no longer shared.

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]]> On Wholeness https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/11/on-wholeness https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/11/on-wholeness Thu, 01 Nov 1990 00:00:00 -0500 Lying
when

you know
you’re lying,

like stuffing
from a
cushion,

integrity
gone

makes
a
sad hole.

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