It Did Happen Here

“It DID Happen Here”
(Delivered under a sky once blue, now bruised by the smoke of burning books and broken truths)

Beloveds,
Gather 'round the gospel of What We Denied,
The story of a flag, a cross, and a lie.

For they told us it couldn’t—
“It won’t happen here!”
As they pumped fear into veins
like communion wine from a fascist vine.

But it did.
Not with jackboots in the night,
But with scripture in one hand
and a gavel in the other,
Declaring love a sin,
And cruelty a sacrament.

They painted Jesus red, white, and blue—
Gave Him a gun,
And told Him to vote Republican.

They turned pulpits into political machines,
Where sermons became stump speeches
And compassion was declared “woke.”

They hung Christ on a cross of nationalism,
Then knelt not in prayer,
But in profit.

It did happen here.

The melting pot cracked—
boiled dry by rage and revision.
The dream deferred,
Until it resembled
a gated community
guarded by men who pray for war
but never peace.

They outlawed books before bullets,
Truth before tyranny.
And called it all “freedom.”

But here’s the good news, my loves:

Freedom doesn’t die.
It hibernates.
It waits in libraries, in playgrounds,
in backyards and basements
where people still dance,
still write,
still dare to believe
in each other.

So let us not worship false idols—
Not flags over friends,
Not dogma over decency,
Not profit over people.

Love is not partisan.
God is not a weapon.
And America is not a church.

Let us resurrect the soul of this land,
Not with fire and fury—
But with joy, protest, poetry, and pancakes.

Let the Pope of Love say unto you:

Blessed are the weird,
The kind,
The unbought,
The unbowed,
For they shall inherit
What was always promised
But rarely delivered:

A country
Where love out votes hate.
Where truth has tenure.
And where no one wraps fascism
in the language of God
ever again.

Amen, and pass the picket signs.