Let the Little Children

Jesus left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.
Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. Mark 10:1-16 

Let the Little Children

They came to our land and homes
with words or help and support
they took our children and changed them
making them to be foreigners to us.

The Good Book came and Jesus
took residence among my people
the people who carried the Book
could not see Him in our midst.

We were a hindrance, a problem
their worldview didn't make room
for the language we spoke together
nor the different way we lived.

They took our little ones by force
they fed us foods that made us sick
they gave us blankets that were infested
all in the name of a Christian nation.

Jesus is still seating among us today
reaching out for the broken and abused
offering healing in our sacred langauge
singing blessings here in our homes.