the 99 collective

This beauty can only be experienced, understood and realized at its deepest
When there is great–greatest pain, sadness and loss

“we will build together in defiance and in hope
we will all pile on and show up
and slower than we’d like
but fast enough for us
we will build a new world stone by stone”

In the long work for justice, we can be urgent yet patient, unreasonably hopeful yet realistic, grandiose yet grounded.

This poem is inspired by my work with detained survivors of torture and the book of poetry, Kalakuta Republic, by Chris Abani—a political prisoner who endured years of torture in Nigeria.

It seems a clean heart is worthless if I keep it to myself and do nothing with it.

How long will you be silent in my life and lives of those who need you most?

“write your history in your vulgar tongue
make your sons’ mouths bleed as they speak
such wicked words as these”

For we are not of earthly desires but of Godly ones that calls to live on the margins, protect life and preserve it until the end of time.

Human dignity, now there’s a righteous cause. Up hold that and defend that. Rise up against that which holds it down.

A song about the amazing, challenging, world-changing love of God…