Posted May 15, 2022 by Sheri Edwards America

Freedom is A Grocery Store

Daily Note

Every day, a photograph, a poem. Today hate happened— hate inspired by the spewing of hate in certain places of supposed news and in social media. Hate, not love. Not acceptance of the value of others’ lives. It’s a horrifying state of supposed “civilized” society.

In my Twitter feed today, someone I do not know stated what I’ve been thinking for a long while:

Freedom isn’t owning 25 rifles, it’s going to the grocery store and not having to worry about being killed by one.
— Kevin ☕️🎶 (@KevinSixx13) May 14, 2022

If I’m in a store and someone is visibly carrying a gun and is not an official of law enforcement, I leave. I don’t appreciate that evidence of such distrust and hate for others, which is what it represents to me— that person is not willing to accept others and lets you know with what he or she carries: a warning, not an invitation. Jesus invited others to join. His entire message was of love.

So, again, in this country, another young person has been drowned in hate and chose to act on it— the opposite message of the Christianity I know. The White Supremacist Christian Identity movement is undermining freedom for all of us.

Today is a sad day for America as well as for the families who simply wanted to do their job or get dinner for their families.

Poetry On Freedom

Freedom is a Grocery Store
Freedom I can describe
As able to safely ride
Over to the grocery
Pick up for my family
Tomatoes, lettuce, chives and such
Dinner simple and not much
Without fear for my own fate
Decided by another’s hate
Of another’s countenance—
With an act of violence:
Freedom is not to hold that gun:
Hate, our freedom, has so undone.
Freedom I can describe
As able to safely ride
Over to the grocery
Buying dinner for family.
Justice by the rule of law
Or freedom is for none at all.