Innocence, Incorporated

When every father feels his wife's pain in giving birth,
And is encouraged to absorb the pain of both his wife and child;
When we improve survival of the full family to adulthood,
Perhaps we'll think about war for a greater while.

We must start feeling compassion for each others' children,
No matter how much our skin tones and religions differ.
Is there anyone who can look into the innocent eyes of a child
And say that suffering, by that sweet child, they would prefer?

Every child could be my responsibility to protect, in a different country.
At what age does any child become my sworn enemy?
I look into the eyes of anyone that I meet, and hope to see
The precious, hope-filled child that he or she was created to be.

I am very seldom thwarted in my seeking for the joyful innocence,
But I have often been attacked for the feelings this nakedness evinced.
So many have been so wounded by their traumatic lives since birth,
They believe that fear, grief, and war control humanity's \"fall\", and ever since.

We are all meant to question and test boundaries in order to grow.
What kind of parent would reject a child for their experimenting?
Isn't it a part of growth to spend a time in firmly dissenting,
In order to test the commitment to truths to which authority is assenting?

Our outward appearances say nothing about what's in our souls,
But we are persecuted by the most afraid of many of those
Who, rather than focus on the values beneath their uniforms of faith,
Continue to use fear of growth to attempt to control the human race.

Without growth, any organism and civilization will atrophy and die;
But the old are afraid of letting go of authority and their usefulness.
Because those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it
The old prophets are, to keeping us from destruction, divinely fit.

A prophet is not one who pulls stories from his or her imagination;
It is one who has observed carefully many generations of human mistakes.
They tell the stories of destruction without prejudice for one or another
Hoping to change the repetitive decisions that destroy the human race.

Until each of us decides we can change the history of humanity
By turning our ancestral traditions just a bit against tribal revenge,
There is little hope that we can save our earth's children
On which the future of human life on earth will forever hinge.