Recently, my mother asked me,“Remember when you were young,and you used to say there would be war?”Then her voice cracked a bit…Through the phone I can hear her brokennessand she asked,“Why did you let your children join the military?”And I,with a deep breath and silent sigh,answered with trembling truth,“I guess I hoped humanity would choose…
I stood at the edge of the battlefield,but it was not a fieldit was a city,a schoolyard,a hospital,a hunger-line wrapped in barbed wire.The smoke rose like incense,but it did not carry prayersonly the stench of gunpowder and grief.And I heard the Lord cry,“Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field,…
Inspired by Daniel 5:25–28(MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN) I watched the painter.She did not speak at first.She only dipped her brush into ashnot paintand dragged it across the canvas like a wound.The world kept spinning.The empire feasted.And she painted like she was remembering somethingwe had all tried to forget.I felt it in my bones.The ancient fire.The…
I am not Caesar’s.I do not bear his stamp.Though he’s tried to etch his empireinto the lines of my face,I have scraped him off with every holy tearand every cry for justice.I am not the emperor’s coin.I do not shine for his glory.I am not made to be traded,stacked, counted, spent, or hoarded.I was shaped…
(Inspired by Luke 20:9–19) I stood in the vineyard at dawn,and the soil was not soft with dew,it was stained.With blood, with ash,with the silence of prophetsburied beneath bureaucracy.The vines were twisted with sorrow.Children’s laughter did not echo here.Only sirens.Only boots.Only the sound of wallsbeing built higherthan hearts can reach.And the Owner,God,keeps sending servants.They come…
I was thereat the border,barefoot in the dust,my robe torn by razor wire,my name forgotten in the paperwork.They didn’t recognize me.Not with their flags wavingor their uniforms pressed,not with their boots stompingor their hands gripping steel.I cried out“Let the children come to me!”But they took them instead,ripped from brown-skinned motherswhose lullabies could not stop the…
A Reckoning for the War-Makers and the Sleepwalkers You will not bomb your way to peace.You will not drone your way to safety.You will not bulldoze children’s homes and call it defense.You will not flatten cities and expect anything but rubble to rise.No scripture—no sacred text from any tradition has ever blessed that lie.Not the…
Inspired by Ecclesiasticus 45:6–16 & Luke 19:41–48 I stood in the ash of a broken city,my hands lifted like cracked branchesstill reaching for rain.And He, Christ,not high on a thronebut bending low above the ruinwept.He did not weep as kings do,with detachment or distance.He wept like a fatherwatching his son bleed out in a school…
By the fire of justice and the breath of hope I stood in the marrow of midnight,in the echo of drums made of broken bones,beneath a sky that forgot how to pray.And I saw Americanot as she paints herself in glory,but naked in the mirror of the Most High.She wore a crown of corporationsand drank…
Remembering Enmegahbowh, Priest and Missionary, 1902 in the Shadow of Empire He stoodnot with sword,but with Spirit.Not to conquer,but to heal.They called him Enmegahbowhthe one who stands before his peopleand stand he did,between the Cross and the Crown,between tribe and church,between war cries and whispered prayers.He did not bend to empire.He did not sell his…