Time stands still
And in the void an otherworldly voice
Begins to whisper from some unknown depths within,
And though her language is unknown
The heart still understands
And begins to whisper too
Softly at first, then growing louder
Until the voice becomes a roar
For all ears to receive

It is not by the color of our skin
Or the hairs on our heads,
The sound of the voice in our throats
The pew in which we sit,
Or the love we hold in our hearts for another
That we are persecuted so,

No, it is the brokenness,
A carried-down, ancestral aching,
Fierce clinging to ancient, entrenched philosophies
Hunger misguided by survival for the fittest
Which tortures and feeds our collective broken heart
The weeping dagger still twisting
In the open wound
Never bearing the opportunity
To experience the light of healing

Those who hold the power to turn the knife
And keep the wound always fresh and weeping
Believe they also hold the key to our survival
Yet they are wrong,
They mask a heart-known truth

We also hold the handle to the knife
And turn its blade deep into our own flesh
Each time we choose hate or indifference over love
Each time we choose personal safety over protection for another
Each time we choose blindness rather than to witness painful truth
Each time we choose, repeatedly, not to remove the knife
From our own bleeding hearts

So when we choose to fight the knife-bearers
Without removing our own knives
We also then choose
To fight ourselves

This truth, it lies inside each one of us
To heal the world
To heal ourselves
We must speak it now
We must live it now

©SpiritLed 2017