Historical Note: On June 19, 1865, Union Army general Gordon Granger, via General Order No. 3, under the terms of the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation, declared freedom for enslaved people in Texas; the last state of the Confederacy with institutional slavery. Commemorations, centered in and around Galveston, Texas, then spreading across the South, have been held since the mid-19th century. On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, declaring the occasion a federal holiday.
“No one is free until we are all free.”
So said Martin Luther King, Jr., thereby testifying to the intrinsically über-relational quality of liberty that transcends every distinction that we humans devise and employ to distinguish and divide ourselves one from another.
In today’s America, continually, increasingly, “where sound the cries of race and clan” and “the noise of selfish strife,”[1] I pray that we, each and all – whoever we are, wherever we are, however we can with whatever we have – for the sake of love and justice, daily strive to invest each and all with the God-given freedom granted not by virtue of color, class, culture, or, even, character, but creation.
© 2022 PRA
#juneteenth #freedomday #jubileeday #civilwar #institutionalslavery #emancipationproclamation #GodtheCreator #loveandjustice
[1] From the hymn, Where cross the crowded ways of life, verse 1; words (1905) by Frank Mason North (1850-1935)
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 
Amen, Paul. May Juneteenth bring us the blessings of remembrance and reminder of the distance we have come but also how far we have yet to go to as a nation to ensure that freedom and justice are honored as the God-given birthrights of EVERY person in this land.
Love,
Karen
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Thank you Paul and Karen! I appreciate this prayer so much!! It feels though that we are going more in reverse than we are going forward! I keep praying that will change! You are so right Karen EVERY person should BE and FEEL free.
Much love to you both!
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My beloved sisters, sometimes (aye, often…always!) I wonder, in the face of life’s worries and woes, tribulations and tragedies, what can I do? Then I think…feel that as long as I have breath and strength, there is life for me to live and labor for me to do. And a great element of that…this…my life and labor is to strive to love and to be just. And then I think…feel that I am not alone. For I have you, each and both, and countless others who daily live to strive and strive to live lives of witness, in word and deed, to right wrongs, to make no peace with oppression, and, yes, to make this old world a better place. My awareness of this always puts me in a better place when the shadow of a “what’s the use” kind of despair would threaten to engulf my soul.
Thank you. Love you, always and in all ways…
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