4th of July

 As I ponder words like freedom and emancipation and liberty and justice, I fend off other words like tyranny and slavery and cruelty. It is so hard. I pray we find the hope and the truth and the way to a radical liberty for every single human being:





Fourth of July by Steven Garnaas-Holmes

Oh, Nation,
I salute you
and I chasten you,
land that I love
and lament:
your liberty and justice
for some and not others,
your innovation and energy
and slavery and genocide,
your high ideals
and your war-making,
your peace and your violence,
born of an idea
you can't quite believe
and a shot heard round the world
that's still shooting and shooting,
your spacious polluted skies,
your amber waves of
chemically treated grain,
your melting pot diversity
and fear of diversity,
your pride, your arrogance.
God shed his grace on thee,
for we are going to need it,
hard times coming,
if we are to see liberty and justice
for the rest of us.
Let the fireworks begin.

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