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The Lavender Pen Tour Has Knocked Down Walls That Have Stood Too Long!

jeffbenson31
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 04:34:32 GMT

The Lavender Pen Tour/LPT walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and it has knocked down walls that have been longstanding. Walls without, walls within. The poet Robert Frost begins his poem, Mending Wall with these words; "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Mahalia Jackson, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Elvis Presley and others have done versions of the African American Spiritual; "Joshua 'fit' the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down." My slave ancestors in this song made the word fought become "fit". The song is about a people who spent 40 days in the wilderness and sought to enter Jericho, a city with walls that kept them out. Joshua's Israelite army marched around the walls 6 days and on the 7th day as they blew their trumpets, the walls came tumbling down. Their God had enabled them to enter a city that had been closed to them. (Joshua 6: 1 - 27) Robert Frost in his poem writes this; "Before I built a wall, I'd ask to know what I was walling in and walling out." If this Spiritual is not in the repertoire of either of the tw o singing groups on the Lavender Pen Tour, it would be a marvelous song to sing as you return to San Francisco and Oakland. You not only have knocked down walls that are labeled fear, ignorance, faith-based bigotry and much more, that are external. You have knocked down the internal walls that each person has within, that keep us from being the best that we could be. Please remember Marilyn Bennett, Gil Caldwell, and the film, "From Selma to Stonewall - Are We There Yet?" as you sing "Joshua 'fit' the battle of Jericho". We are not yet "There" re; the rights of LGBTQIA+ persons, same sex couples, people of color, women, immigrants from Mexico, poor people, and others, but the Lavender Pen Tour has knocked down some walls, that will never be built again! Amen and Amen. Rev. Gil Caldwell Asbury Park, New Jersey