To You, My People, I Cry Out
Only in the absence of light can we be found in the dark.
Many of my brethren would argue with this proclamation as they do not dare to dirty the shine of their shoes for the sake of the man who has none.
As the modernized Pharisees, they question the believers who sit beside the publican and prostitute while conversing with the criminal.
Despite their polarized views, visualized through the reflection of their spectacles, they cannot see their echo nor bear the weight of the guilt their unrighteous judgment brings.
They ridicule the rapscallion, though they represent the rambunctious more than the radical. Their mirrors are as dirty and clouded as their minds, rendering their contemplations “without fault” due to their absence.
Brothers and sisters of the world, I understand your vexation. You have been unfairly bastardized and cut from the fold with hearts that hold the sword but not the spirit.
I understand your retribution and counterattack. How can I not when I, too, have been on the defensive in the court of public opinion?
I was not sent to the righteous nor born in a brilliant hospice. My cradle was met with hungry termites, not diamond jewelers. I am sent to the ones who know God by the spit of His children, those who sought the Antidote to the poisons of life and instead found venomous serpents, who desperately reached for a helping hand and were greeted by the bottom of a boot.
I have been judged by the children of God and assaulted by the devout on every front. I am not here to ponder their position nor flame their flagrant faulting. God judges the righteous and the not; Hell’s flames are judgment-enough.
To you, my people, I cry out, though you despitefully use me. Though you bite, gnash, and wail, I stand firm for your salvation. If you must take my life to grasp your eternal rock upon this mountainous existence, then by all means, climb higher.
Love, as all who have adored another know, is a costly transaction.
I am not afraid of the muck nor worried about the vehement war of words. The most vicious of nonbelievers, in my opinion, are nothing more than hypocrites who judge, smother, assault, and belittle, just as the men of the cloth they claim to have escaped.
We are all imprisoned by the hubris of comfortability, and in that, we are equal. We have been enslaved by our masters and oppressed by our lawmakers. Therefore, I, a man on the same relatable plane, have found my solution in scripture. After seeking all possible conclusions, I still come to Christ.
To you, my people, I cry out as my namesake, born and raised in the wilderness. One greater than me, whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose, comes on the way we prepare. This path is the hardest one. My heavenly siblings are nothing more than stumbling blocks. Meanwhile, the world offers more pleasures than one can fathom, while a relationship with God in the absence of religion is the most breathtaking, firm-standing, joy-giving way this creation provides.
My people: know that when I place this pen to paper, it is done with a love un-documentable with ink, for all a solvent’s darkness could not hold the admiration of Adonai. I pray this text finds you well and that you read beyond these lines. May what’s missing be made whole, and may the light shine on your most profound darkness, that your luminescence would glow in the tenebrosity of this world that seeks to swallow and strangle.
If the unrighteous, religious, and governances of mankind try to discourage and cast you down, know that you are not alone.
To you, my people, I cry out.
