Americans Have Been Dazzled ...

Americans have been dazzled out of their brains by wealth.
We love it.
The thought of it.
And having it someday ourselves.

Our preachers have taught us get-up-and-go.
Our teachers have taught us how to have a career.
Our preachers failed often, too often, about love.
Our teachers failed often, too often, about daring to think.

America's god is really, truly, thoroughly, crazily, Mammon.
TV, books, prayer meetings, continuing education, and seminars.
It's all about wealth.
Who has it.
Who doesn't.

Meanwhile the wealthy go about their sordid lives.
Using charity to dazzle us.

We puff up with admiration for these "kindly" people.
Who, like the rich of Jesus' time.
Make sure everyone sees them with their bags of gold.
Dropping them loudly into the treasuries of human pride.

Meanwhile the widow, gamed by the system, thinks it's the thing to do.

And maybe it is.
So she gives, too.
Her two pennies.
The last she has.

Jesus loves her for it.
But he does't love the system that betrays her in.
A system that takes.
Her last two pennies.
And her house, too.
Everything, it takes.
And then: promises God's blessing.
Yet never delivers, but always promises:
Health, wealth, and happiness.


But God, it seems, isn't about wealth.
So those who have it.
Have to create a god who loves it.
Who bestows wealth upon the righteous.
Or so they think:
The deserving.
The self-made.
Those who help themselves, of course.
With prayer and bible-reading.
Going to church.
Going for the best seats in the house.
Wearing their going-to-church Sunday best.
To dazzle the folks with wealth.
And to keep the folks in line.
Helpless to be anything but envious.
And always:
Amazed and,
Dazzled.

It's Mammon who laughs cruelly at the fooled.
It's Mammon who collects their souls.
And chows down on them, devouring them with glee.
Turning their wealth into nightmares of fear and hatred.
And the poor are ground down to flavor the feast.

And so it goes.
America the Great.
Mad for money.
Lusting for wealth.

We've rewarded the preachers who've dazzled us with dreams.
We've rewarded the teachers who stole our ability to think.
We've bowed down to Mammon so ofter we don't know any better.

And while the poor languish.
The rich laugh.
On the fantail of a yacht.
Or 40 thousand feet up in a private jet.
In comfort and style and pride and piety.

And the widow gives her last two pennies.
And her children starve.
And then she dies.

She was better than all of them.
But a victim of their game.

A game Jesus despised.
No wonder they did him in.