Shackels

The columns held only their first name.

A name in which their parents had chosen.

Names that recall a life to unfold and hope to capture.

Shackled 

The columns held their age.

Ages that represented tenderness.

Boys who would still cuddle in the safety of a parent when nightmares swirled their dreams. 

Shackled

The columns held an arbitrary number.

A number that determined their worth.

A number that would hold keep them in bondage. 

Shackled.

The columns held those that used their resources to shutter and silence someone different.

An amount was paid so one would feel more powerful than another.

Using God's name to raise fear in order to keep the power to shackle others. 

Shackled.

Today, as the nation celebrates a blue wave, I am grieving for my home state of Tennessee.  

I am grieving because I see the shackles around the necks of the tender children whose parent must navigate the shame and guilt of working and yet not being able to provide a sustainable and reliable source of food for them and the village who refuses to rise to ensure food security for all.

I am grieving because I see the shackles around the necks of every black and brown young adult whose lives are filled with fear every time they leave the house for fear that someone has predetermined their worth because of their hairstyle, clothes or color of their skin.

I am grieving because I see the shackles still being locked into place by drawing arbitrary lines on a map because they want to use their power to belittle others with lesser resources and a darker shade of skin. 

I am grieving that are so many individuals who are using the name of the God I love so deeply (the God who has shown me the beauty of the world and that their divine being is held within all) as a storefront for spewing hate. I am grieving that people who align themselves with Jesus and proclaim they are pro life, refuse to provide the health/medical resources for the medically fragile children, or feed every single child the state, or clean up the pieces of the broken foster care system. I am grieving because women and transgender individuals are shackled to the death trap of someone else making choices for their bodies when the decision makers and power holder have all the power to make the choices for themselves. I am grieving because those who proclaim they walk like Christ yet stick their treasure in the ground because they are so focused on their own gain instead of trying to multiple the resources they were entrusted with for the greater community.   I am grieving because the sweet resources of our state will be stripped away as leaders who proclaim Jesus with their lips and deny him with their lifestyle refuse to be good stewards of the resources before us. 

While chains were broken last night, the shackles remain.  

Our brothers and sisters, young and old are still shackled to systems of oppression.  In our celebration of the blue movement, we are also allowed to grieve because the leader who was just elected  will more than likely choose to tighten the chains around the necks of others and is willing to pay any price necessary to lord their personal power over others. 

In our grief let us be the chain makers, the shackle destroyers and live as Martin Luther King reminds us,  "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole."  

Let us keep taking the steps in removing the shackles from our neighbors.