EMANCIPATION: DELAYED BUT NOT DISMAYED

 

(Apropos Of A Juneteenth Celebration)

 

This is the day the Lord has made;

Let us rejoice and celebrate

Because we’re still here…marching on

With our eyes stayed on the prize.

Let us rejoice and celebrate

Because we’re aware that we are not

The children of Sisyphus; rather,

We are the children of the Womb of Africa;

We are the children of the Middle Passage;

We are the children of Jacob’s Ladder;

We are the children of the Exodus;

We are the children of the Cross;

We are the children of the Emancipated;

We are the children of the Resurrection;

We are the children of the Trinity.

So let us celebrate, lifting every voice singing:

“Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round,

Gonna keep on a’walking, keep on a’talking,

Marching up to freedom land.”

Yes, we are the children of world liberation.

In every war for the liberation of others,

We’ve always been those wars’ “point soldiers”.

Fighting for the rights of others while for us,

Freedom, justice, and equality remained a dream.

At last…at last…the world now joins with us,

Fighting the greatest enemy of all times

Here in America where racism has now become

The living reality of that which has only been

A brief homily voided of the complete allegorical

Teaching message embedded in the Good Samaritan.

So come, Brothers and Sisters, let us celebrate

Reconciling ourselves with each other here at home;

Celebrating on the “battlefield of the Lord” realizing

That our freedom—like our house in heaven—Our

Freedom is not made with hands but is fought and won

Through divine guidance and a will, death can’t destroy.

 

Come, ye children of God, let us gather and celebrate!

Let us celebrate on the Gulf Coast and plains of Texas.

Let us celebrate along the bayous and lakes of Louisiana.

Let us celebrate over the mountains of Tennessee and

Georgia.

Let us celebrate across the hills and fields of Alabama and

Mississippi.

Let us celebrate in Tulsa and throughout all of Oklahoma.

Come, ye children of God, let us gather and celebrate!

Let us celebrate from the shores of the Pacific to the shores

of the Atlantic.

Let us celebrate from the snow covered grounds of Alaska to

The sands of Hawaii.

And when we have celebrated let us make it clear

To our racist oppressors that we’ve not been distracted

From the journey towards our complete liberation; but that

We paused to take a celebratory breath towards journeying on.

 

                  ©Millard Lowe Juneteenth 2020