My ancestors

A. J

BECAUSE we have lost the path our ancestors cleared

BECAUSE we have banished the God of our ancestors,

BECAUSE the old wails of our ancestors have faded beyond our hearing,

BECAUSE we have abandoned our wisdom of mothering and fathering,

our befuddled children give birth to children

BECAUSE we have forgotten how to love, the adversary is within our

gates, an holds us up to the mirror of the world shouting,

Therefore we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our

lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate,

to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things,

knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters.

IN HONOR of those who toiled and implored God with golden tongues,

and in gratitude to the same God who brought us out of hopeless desolation, we make this pledge.