Amen

“when the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die”

WAR. The very sound of the word evokes mixed emotions within me — rage, fear, uncertainty; but almost always, it brings a tear to my eye.

War gives us something to argue about over the breakfast and dinner table. Something to listen to on the radio on our commute to and from work. It is a topic of discussion at the pantry. Something to read about everyday in the papers.

We argue, most times, that war unites people either for or against a common cause. What we fail to acknowledge is that we wage war against others because we have not learned how to love ourselves.

Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen

In my living room watching, I am not laughing,
Cause when it gets tense I know what might happen
The world is cold, the bold men take action
have to react or get blown into fractions.
Ten years old, it’s something to see,
another kid my age drug under a jeep,
taken and bound, and found later under a tree,
I wonder if he had thought the next one could be me.

Do you see, the soldiers, they’re out today they
Brush the dust from bulletproof vests away.
It’s ironic, at times like this you pray,
but a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday.
There’s bombs on the buses, bikes, roads,
inside your market,your shops, your clothes,
My dad, He’s got a lot of fear I know
but enough pride inside not to let that show.
My brother had a book he would hold with pride
A little red cover with a broken spine.
On the back, he hand wrote a quote inside:
“when the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die”
And meanwhile, the leader just talks away
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay
and the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
both scared and angry like “what did he say?”

Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen.

— from Hands Held High by Linkin’ Park

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