I wrote this on December 17, 2014:
Nine years ago, this month, I was forgiven.
I had been provided the terms of my probation, released from jail, and allowed to freely commune with those who are free.
You see, forgiveness is a lot like love, in that, it is action and not concept.
Treacherous humanity has turned this beautiful pearl into a simple thought, a feeling.
This has been devastating to the human condition, because it is contrary to what is true.
To feel loved and to be loved are not the same; to feel forgiven and to be forgiven are not the same.
Young children understand these simple things - especially the ones who are subjected to the violence of larger and more intelligent humans who strike them out of anger and call it "discipline". For people like them have said in their hearts, "it is better to receive forgiveness than it is to give it" and "I will treat you in the way that I do not want to be treated". They have said in their hearts, "It has now become 'culture', because adults are adults, and children are children, and blacks are blacks, and whites are whites, and fags are fags, and straights are straights, and God has NOT created all men equal - except the ones I say are equal to me."
When I was forgiven, I was released, I was physically set free from bondage. If the prisoner had only felt like he was forgiven, he would only be free in his imagination.
Even as man practices forgiveness in his thoughts, so does he idolize God (from a word straight to the imagination). Such things have been devastating to us, because they are contrary to what is right in front of our faces. They make the Magnificent Enigma nothing more than a powerful magician whose magical acts are mysteriously unseen.
And though they continue to sing their songs for mercy, forever as it seems, their own prophet said to them, "Take away from Me the noise of your songs, I will not even listen to the sounds of your instruments - but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
The starving child whose skin meets her bones, does not care about the forgiving feelings or the loving prayers of those who withhold food from her. It has helped neither them nor her. To forgive her would be to feed her, and nothing less. Forgive her for being black, forgive her for being African, forgive her for being poor - when she is forgiven, her belly will be full.
