Why Should a Child Be Born?

The Jewish/Palestinian conflict in the Middle East goes on and on without resolution, and in the course of the tactics of delay thousands of people have suffered and died. Those who have suffered the most have been women and children, and at times entire villages have been destroyed. Adherents of both sides of the conflict cry ""foul"" and accuse their opponents of injustice and intransigence. An Israeli bus and its passengers are blown up by a suicide bomber, a Palestinian village is bombed in response. Land owned by a Palestinian farmer is confiscated in order to build a Jewish settlement. While politicians jockey back and forth over who is right and wrong and over what is right and wrong, children die from dastardly injuries and malnutrition, and people are unjustly imprisoned. One wonders where is the cry for human dignity? Where is the cry for compassion and humane behavior? The plea of these poems is that the adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths of the Middle East--Jews, Christians, and Muslims--in the midst of conflicts that have precipitated the persecution, starvation, and death of thousands, particularly children, acknowledge their common humanity and work together for peace and harmony. ""Kimbrough's poetic articulation of the heart-rending dislocations and victimizations of a people shows that where prose fails, poetry's aesthetics, rhythm, and symbolism succeed magnificently. It invokes in us rage and powerlessness, demanding a dynamic ethical response and a vigorous prophetic and critical mind. S T's poems reflect his training in Hebrew scriptures, with its prophetic, ethical, and wisdom materials, and he composes these poems as if they were a libretto to be sung, a reminder of his other vocation as an operatic baritone."" --Charles Amjad-Ali, Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor of Justice and Christian Community and Director of Islamic Studies Program, Emeritus, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota ""I highly recommend this collection of transformative poems. They are powerful and touch our hearts and minds."" --Mazin Qumsiyeh, Professor and Director, Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability, Bethlehem University, Occupied Palestine S T Kimbrough, Jr., holds a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary and is currently a research fellow of the Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition at Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina. He is author of the following books by Wipf and Stock: The Lyrical Theology of Charles Wesley (2011), Radical Grace: Justice for the Poor and Marginalized (2013), Partakers of the Life Divine: Participation in the Divine Nature in the Writings of Charles Wesley (2016), and has published poetry in the journal Theology Today.