Open the Gates

An alternative reading for Psalm 118

Open the gates of justice.
They are rusted shut
and chained.
Weeds  and brambles
choke the path
that leads there.

Open the gates
and let all enter -
the orphan and the widow,
the poor;
the stranger,
whose heart you know,
for you were once a stranger
in a strange and narrow land.

You were tortured and
enslaved, hunted,
humiliated,
stripped of your humanity
and your lives,

because you were
differently skinned,
otherly colored,
your faith
your ideas
and clothes
and loves
were not the same.

Open the gates
for the despairing and desperate,
for those whose
hope has been stolen.

Oh, My children!
Open the gates that
you have nailed shut.
I beseech you -
I beg you!
Open the gates.
Let the light of justice
shine; let all of
My children. rejoice.