Ah, yes—out of context,
You must read the whole story to understand.
Yet if it takes volumes of gymnastics
to make slavery sound like mercy,
or violence look like love,
then what do we say of the foundation itself?
Can a word be both shackle and key,
both lash and bandage for the wound it opened?
If the same text can bless the oppressor and the oppressed,
then what is it we hold in our hands,
and who among us wields it rightly?
This book has been war drum and lullaby,
stone tablet and olive branch—
invoked in courts and whispered at bedsides.
It tells the slaveholder he is blessed,
and the slave that his suffering is holy.
It tells women to be silent (1 Timothy 2:12)
and prophets to cry aloud in the streets (Isaiah 58:1).
If both can claim it, not all can be right.
But perhaps all can be wrong.
What is a compass that points north and south,
depending on who holds it?
What is a map where every road leads home,
but only after leading you in circles?
This is—
the book that can justify both chains
and the hands that break them.
It is a sword with no handle,
and we are all trying to swing it
without cutting ourselves open.
