Far From Home

To the young nation of America

Of independent condition

I am grateful for your freedoms

But not your contradictions

I believe that you are meant to be

A union more perfect still

Let’s examine what now stays our steps

From ascending that noble hill

“Liberty” is the song you sing

With ringing chimes and tolls to aid

Such virtue calls for stronger stuff than that

From which your cracked bell was made

With words you list so many things

That are quite worthy pursuits

Yet in practice these words of yours

Do not match the things you do

Your Declaration claims as equal

All, with rights are imbued (1)

Then ought life, liberty, and happiness exist

For migrants and their children too? (2)

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses”

Is engraved on the sentry at our shores (3)

Who lifts a lamp to guide those masses

Unto the lock and chains that bar our doors

And what is to be done, Land of the Free,

With regards to your ever-persistent delay

To make good upon your proclamation

To break the chains of the slave? (4a)(4b)

What good is it to loose the stocks

Whilst forging bars of steel?

Rebar for the stones of bondage

Roads for wrongful judicial wheels? (5)

The God you name as your Sovereign

Has spoken today and so long ago

Of many things you practice proudly

That shamefully ought not be so

“Have no other God’s before me”

To guide where our worship is due (6)

Where we should bow most humbly before the altar

We erect idols red, white, and blue

“Love your neighbor as yourself”

Is the second highest command (7)

Yet to be selective about our neighbors

Is upheld by law throughout our land (8)

To laud the wicked and condemn the righteous

“are both an abomination to the LORD” (9)

We acquit Barnabas and crucify Christ

From our seat beneath Damocles’ sword

Oh prodigal nation, now repent

And turn from your unjust ways

From stolen land to bloodstained hands (10)

Promises broken, freedoms stayed

Now take heart- your sins cannot outnumber

The mercies of God whom you have oft' forsaken

Clear the thrones of your hearts and courts

Of the idols his place have taken

Make right the wrongs as he so guides

In the ways of life everlasting (11)

Learn the meaning and so enact

The fruits of true righteous fasting (12)

No one is perfect, this much is true

But we must do better still

If we claim to be one nation under God

Then we must learn and do his will

Love the Lord with your heart and soul

And the world entire of neighbors as yourself

The love of God above all things

O’er power, status, and wealth

Forsake the things that contradict

True freedom leaves no room for hate

Until the former is known by all

America is not yet great

___

Recommended viewing/reading:

1) Text of the US Declaration of Independence:

2) TIME magazine updates on family separation:

3) "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus:

4a) "An Introduction to Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow" (length: 3:30):

4b) "Slavery to Mass Incarceration"(length: 5:50):

5) "The State of American Prison System" (length: 3:22):

6) Exodus 20:3

7) Mark 12:28-31:

8) Wikipedia summary on recent immigration policies:

9) Proverbs 17:15

10) VOX ("16 maps that Americans don't like to talk about"):

11) Psalm 139:24

12) Isaiah 58:6-14