Can you hear the cries of our kids?

Listen carefully.

Their voices are no longer contained to education’s hallways.

Now, their chant “Never Again!” echoes throughout the nation.

Wearing bulletproof backpacks, they raise their anthem of lament,

And face indifferent politicians with ageless determination.

Will their adolescent demand for a gun-free future

Drown the deafening silence of the grown-ups?

The silence of the power-hoarding grown-ups.

Their grown-up silence:

A form of violence.

It’s been bought by death’s innovators.

Their willful silence to terrorism by white mass-shooters,

It all but guarantees their job security.

But wait…

They’re not that silent.

Remember.

They offer their “thoughts and prayers.”

Their thoughts and prayers.

Are they empty platitudes that remain unanswered?

Or, could it be that their prayers are answered?

For they pray not to the God we see in Jesus;

They pray to the gods of nationalism, war, and greed.

Their thoughts and prayers are heard indeed

By their preferred deities.

Blood stained classrooms are evidence of their worship.

Blood stained classrooms are their answered prayers.

Blood stained classrooms…

…under the red, white, and blue banner that protects our freedom to bear death machines.

It’s the banner of their religion:

“One nation Under Mars.”

One nation oppressed and intoxicated by violence.

Our nation, profiting from the very tools that kill our kids.

Where is your allegiance?

To a god who wields weapons?

Or to a God who wore one?

Your silence exposes your preference.