{"id":299890,"date":"2025-07-28T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=299890"},"modified":"2025-07-25T13:39:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:39:24","slug":"dont-you-dare-call-this-holy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/07\/dont-you-dare-call-this-holy\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t You Dare Call This Holy!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I sadly submit to the readers of <\/em>Transcend Media Service this photo of Palestinian children (credited to the <\/em>Anadolu Agency), facing the horrors of war, and this timeless poem by Lora Lee, the co-editor of <\/em>The Poet Tree Press.\u00a0 Let us never forget\u2026.<\/em>
\n— Gary Corseri, <\/em>TRANSCEND Member<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Don’t you dare
\nwrap this in scripture…
\nthis wreckage, this ash,
\nthese tiny shoes buried in concrete.
\nDon\u2019t stand over bodies
\nand speak of covenant.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t quote prophets
\nwhile pulling the trigger.
\nDon\u2019t bless the tank:
\nthe rifle,
\nthe drone,
\nand call it obedience.<\/p>\n

This is not sacrifice.
\nThis is slaughter.
\nAnd no verse you recite
\ncan sanctify
\nthe screams of children
\nyou refuse to hear.<\/p>\n

You believe your hands are clean;
\nYou say this is \u201ctheir\u201d destiny,
\nBut look again\u2026
\nYour holiness, drips red.<\/p>\n

You think you know God?
\nTell me,
\nwhere is He in this?
\nIn the smoke?
\nIn the silence?
\nIn the names we stopped saying
\nbecause there were too many?<\/p>\n

You build walls
\nand say they are protection.
\nYou drop bombs
\nand say they are justified.
\nYou erase lives
\nand say it\u2019s complicated.
\nBut I see what you mean
\nwhen you say holy.
\nYou mean ours, not theirs.
\nYou mean this blood matters, that blood doesn\u2019t.
\nYou mean God lives on your side of the fence.
\nYou mean your grief is sacred,
\nand theirs is statistics.<\/p>\n

Well I\u2019m here to tell you\u2026
\nthere is nothing holy
\nabout forgetting
\nwho you used to be\u2026<\/p>\n

Nothing divine
\nabout turning your back
\non the child
\nwho looks too much like your own
\nto be that easy to ignore.<\/p>\n

If God is here…
\nand I still believe He is…
\nHe is not: at your parade,
\nHe is not blessing your flag.
\nHe is in the rubble,
\nHe is in the scream,
\nHe is in the voice that still dares
\nto say ENOUGH.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t you dare
\ncall this holy.
\nNot while the sky
\nis still full of dust
\nand there are lullabies
\nno one will finish tonight.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 LoraLee 07\/2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t you dare
\nwrap this in scripture…
\nthis wreckage, this ash,
\nthese tiny shoes buried in concrete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":299891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[3287,1559,1854,101,100,1199,2242,87,865,1029,1966,1644,88,2416,771,427,868,2897,880,99,70,965,1025],"class_list":["post-299890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-format","tag-anti-zionism","tag-collective-punishment","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-cultural-violence","tag-direct-violence","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-famine","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-hamas","tag-hunger","tag-international-court-of-justice-icj","tag-israel","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-nakba","tag-palestine","tag-poetry","tag-sociocide","tag-state-terrorism","tag-structural-violence","tag-usa","tag-war-crimes","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299892,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299890\/revisions\/299892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}