No parent wants their child

to play in traffic.

This parent didn’t know

so many children are the traffic.

Women and children

jammed in a highway of hell.

 

The wheels of hollow men merge,

spinning faster in banal queues.

Oppressor and oppressed

become shells, abandoned cars.

No body wins.

 

It is a thoroughfare of despair

as booths collect their tolls

for a way that leads to death.

Sex in a six lane slab

stalled and overheated.

 

Victims lay on their horns

which only whimper

while men keep

checking under the hood.

 

 

Oh my God,

what have we done?

When did humans

become traffic?

 

Last night I attended the above event. But I was broken once again over our humanity. At one point the hope in this seemingly hopeless pang was broadcast and historic names were dropped…Moses, Abraham Lincoln, William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King. All were men of prayer and placed their hope in God. As people of faith we can put dents in this. Let us continue to hope in God and become vehicles of hope for the oppressed. Thank you Lindsey for passion that grew into compassion that grew into action. My prayer is that it is highly contagious.

These are the last four lines of T.S.Elloit’s The Hollow Men

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

To which I say…It doesn’t have to end this way.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; he has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Isaiah 61:1-3a