At what cost O God has this country been born?
That of a fifteen-year-old Cherokee boy, Bird Clan-His Father's only son protecting his country from tyranny
At what cost O God has this country been born?
The blood of a young lad-MacNaughton, killed by the colony's freedom fighters, a world away from the heather
At what cost O God has this country been born?
A mother's son of ten drumming for the Corp., cannons do not discriminate, by age or jacket color
At what cost O God has this country been born? Eighteen, hanging on a swampy Cypress tree because of a glance, across the color line
At what cost O God has this country been born? Across salty seas in a war to end all wars-the last man standing, but barely a man-he fell
At what cost O God has this country been born? The Japanese took no prisoners-his last words, the same spoken when he was two, "Mommy..."
At what cost O God has this country been born? Nineteen and frozen in Korea, pneumonia kills a boy like a bayonet
At what cost O God has this country been born? Home from Viet Nam but home disappeared, He saved the last bullet for himself
Red...The land of the Red Man, barely visible, our red fading I see your red colors dripping, leaking, spewing, spilling Red from shame, red from anger-red on the land
Blue...A young man waits at Valley Forge, scraping frosty toes and sees only blue Blue bodies in criss-crossed angles lie in a Wounded Knee ditch,
war mothers live a lifetime in blue
And white? Not white that covers colors but white that heightens them pure, sacred, clean white, white for peace,
no white...none at all
Mothers give birth to American sons
marching they go from womb to war, desperate grief cuts mom's like a dull razor to the bone
Fathers grieve too, through thinly veiled rhetoric Recovering from lunacy-words that feebly justify the death of "Daddy's boy"
White, there is little to speak of-just red and blue. Greed, racism, control...evil triplets
over populating what still stands between America's shores
At what cost O God has this country been born? Surrender, yes surrender-but to Your white flag my Lord
Not cowards but warriors who die in an instant and live forever heroes birth us again, in White...
This gift of words is given to you by Randy Woodley from Randy's book Living in Color: Embracing God's Passion for Ethnic Diversity © 2000. Available from book stores everywhere. Dr. Woodley is an associate professor of Indigenous Studies at George Fox Seminary in Newberg, Oregon. He is the author of several books including his newest Shalom and the Community of Creation.
