Oh, Judge

[I need you Lord.]

Judge, don’t you see that God’s arms extend to us and this unjust system has constrained us with our backs toward the earth, blinding us with human selfishness? Why don’t we turn to look at the real, to turn to turn?

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please

can we not see

Can we not feel the love of God!! It is just a dim reflection, please, about-face, here in this courtroom. Behold I tell you that I have left behind al—my homeland, my home. (But I have no home; I could not prove my residence.) I have risked my reputation, my health, and I have but two hundred dollars…no more food stamps…

But I have bemusement: a healthy body, a loving family, and white privilege; a US citizenship, a male sex, a sense of diction, and either insane courage or a maniacal faith. And in this last, I have good company.

For I love God with so much hope in all I see about me, in you, in this emporium of legislative proceeding: all of it just a reflection of the divine love that is God’s for us. [And what is God’s justice in us? It is the longing of the longest night of the year, the yearning for daybreak that envies the moon.]

My frustration, my fury too, is but a pale remote quiver in the roar that shall be God’s vengeance.

So I look at you with pity, my poor Stephen, my poor country_men, myself. We are but failures to live out the ideal, for we cannot adequately represent ourselves. We are hamstrung by incapable representatives, deceased forbearers who fought here and died a martyrs death so that we might know more poetic ends.

We are a sliver from the beam of truth.

Yet every fiber in us is of the same source. And so our conscience in us identifies all that we came from and that which is our true authority.

Will I ever say in this courtroom reasons sufficient to walk away satisfied? Could I tell you a story so compelling to melt your heart, oh neighbor, oh community member, I dare say, my own...

Is rock imperturbable? I cannot grasp the depth of pain my tortured friends have felt. I cannot bear return to El Salvador or Guatemala and say that I have lived a life of solidarity. I can (not) hardly claim that I am a human being... See how I falter with doubt,

but God and not me will carry out the miracle.

Lord, this I pray, that I might not be so fool hardy, so self-aggrandizing [to take myself so seriously!] that it is I who will do justice where none before me have succeeded. I must let go with the hope grounded in what I believe is good and right and true of the legal court.

I know that you, judge, have listened to me. We have become united in thought. God has let my words come to mind and to yours and in this our union has trespassed whatever legality. Whatever judgment that will ensue, you will resume to your rightful role, and I to mine. I will once again take up the international law of self defense until you determine enough is enough. Then you will object and warn me to desist. I will continue, and then I may be denied a further opportunity to speak.

Yet with God as my witness, I will have done right by my conscience in speaking to you as a human being, whom I care for, whom I have directed my words to in a symbolic way. For I know that my words are recorded and will be archived, and that a worldwide audience could choose to find in them some reflection of God’s infinity, in how the words transcend the confines of these walls. Thus, I will not bear the satisfaction myself except

in the hope I will have….

I will not rest my case until I rest in God!!