Madden Mischief

You poor, huddled masses now with glee
Away from suffering you left back home.
Fulfilling that nagging yearn to be free,
Hold high the torch, freedom’s cell phone

Are not the cell phones we carry through thick and thin our own tiny torches for liberty?  Are not our cell phones symbols of our freedom in a promised land? 

For isn’t how freely we communicate indicative of how truly free we are?  Would you and I have the same spirited cell phone conversation in Moscow as we would in Miami?  Or in China as we would in Chattanooga?

Are not our cell phones and how we brandish them in public places clear signs we can say whatever we want in a free and open society without fear of reprisals from police?

For me, my cell phone is not so much a Statue of Liberty as it is a station for public relations, yet still it’s a potent symbol we all carry around today of our hard-fought rights to free speech. 

Almost wherever we are, our cell phones are actively proving we live in a free, albeit sometimes noisy and confrontational society.  But it’s good noise.  

Inspiring noise. Worthy confrontation.  And how fortunate we Americans are to be free to make it work for that common cause–freedom.

Here in America, we can do just about anything we please, say whatever is on our minds.  We can speak our hearts out provided it doesn’t interfere with that same freedom others have in this great wide-open country of ours, the world’s one and only true democracy.

To be free to call and to text whomever whenever we want is a precious freedom we Americans are blessed to have and to hold.  Our cell phones are that sign of how free we are to speak our minds. 

So, fellow cell phoners, let us not overly restrain that freedom at our borders and make the word immigrant sound so pejorative and ugly, for unless we’re Native Americans, we’re all immigrants, now citizens of this great country of ours.   

So may our cell phones clear the air, speak for us, that we were all created equal and entitled to flee from danger, suffering and unjust imprisonment so abounding in autocracies and deserving to finally breathe free. 

And may our cell phones forever be reminders like our Statue of Liberty to give those tired, poor huddled masses the opportunity to breathe free but insist they do it legally, then work hard, live decently and be worthy of such a gift as freedom.

It might help to store on our cell phones what Pope Francis said: to turn migrants away from the prospect of peace and security in a new country is “a grave sin.”

P.S.

Thinking this was so celleloquent (new word?), I sent it to an editor in New York City, but she was unimpressed and passed.   Then I wrote this to her:

How could you pass this one up, one of my most cell-eloquent?  Isn’t your publication’s mission to uplift, to eradicate prejudice, replace the trite and banal with lofty thought?  Inspire readers to see positives around us more sharply?   

No big deal.  Just curious, I told her.  Then I asked her this:

Do New Yorkers wish immigrants would stay where they are instead of fleeing to the promised land?  And if so, will we see Lady Liberty’s eyes start to tear? 

                                                                                                                                                TM