Voter Suppression & 1 Corinthians 11.17

Voter suppression and 1 Corinthians 11.17ff - a place at the Table for everyone, and for those with a bit more in the larder, eat at home, drink what you want, and don't embarrass the poor with your abundance when coming together at the Table. Restrain yourselves, and learn how to eat together properly, recognizing in one another the love of God and the very presence of Christ. 

Strikes me that Paul's commentary on the Corinthian situation has some bearing on voter suppression, and the dreams of Lincoln and others, that voting belongs to all, regardless of class, race, or gender. 

Any effort made to exclude, however cleverly it may be disguised, is nothing less than a repudiation of Christ, and it's no wonder that so many are sick and dying in the throes of racist agony.

What think ye of this?

We Will Recover

The genius of American Democracy is that neither "side" should ever gain a permanent victory.

The nature of the beast should then always offer a degree of tension, and likely frustration, too, as the two sides vie with one another to implement their vision (and it most always boils down to two sides, here or in other parts of the world).

When Eisenhower agreed to run for the Presidency, he became a Republican, believing that the US has been in the hands of the Democrats for too long. Emotionally, politically, Eisenhower could well have been a Democrat, too. But he wanted to balance the system.

For me, we're in a period of time when the Oligarchy has essentially taken the upper hand, using both Republicans and Democrats to game the government for their advantage. America, more than ever, has fallen in love with money, fame, fortune, and the power associated with all of it. And for millions more, who always seem to be locked out of the house of plenty, a deep and often violent resentment fueled by tribalism and fear.

It's always been about money, but somewhere along the line, the scales were tipped toward a particularly venomous version of money - no longer the WASP sense of duty to a nation, or even a semblance of some kind of Christian or Jewish orientation, but now just greed, and hanging around the edges of power, those in the tattered rags of evangelicalism yapping on about Cyrus and Israel, and a whole of biblical cockamamie.

Democracy is threatened, as I see it.

Yet, we will recover, not because we're Americans, or because we're the apple of God's eye, but because we're human beings, and this is how history totters along, always out of balance, and always seeking balance, and sometimes, in those brilliant moments of peace and wellbeing, actually achieves some degree of balance, wherein the two sides, locked in struggle, enable the better angels.

Empires come and empires go ... and along the way, enormous suffering, and always war. Yet science discovers, musicians compose, poets write, historians publish, people fall in love, children are born, some rise to greatness of heart and vision, and lead nations to better days.

It pays to be cynical in order to be honest about humanity's inhumanity to itself ... but it pays to be hopeful lest one give up and sink into despair or some form of quiet hedonism. As long as poets write and artists tell their stories, there is hope for tomorrow.

I don't know the timeline. A physician-friend said to me a few days back about socialized healthcare - "We'll eventually get there, but not likely in our lifetime."

He may be right, but I hope he's not, and I hope that we can move things along a bit more swiftly.

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.

The Disease Called Wealth - by Cindi Brady

From good friend and fine writer, Cindi Brady ...

You know me, rambles over breakfast. Coffee, waffles, and writing about social / political issues.  🤔

This is an old one.

*** 

It was 2005. boyfriend (now husband) Pat and I were renters in New Jersey, coveting a place near the shore.

We found a room in a beautiful 3-story Victorian, a half block from the ocean. The owner, Chris, was the 27-year-old son of an extremely wealthy local builder. It was his weekend home for the summer.

He didn't need our rent money, but as the home stood vacant five nights a week (and fully 7 nights when summer was over), there was no reason not to sit back and collect.

He lived a blissful life as the scion of extreme wealth. Still 3 years away from 30, he was the .1%. Wealth I'd never seen up close.

On the first night after Pat and I had moved in, Chris stumbled drunkenly into our room at 3 a.m. and urinated all over a box of Pat's still-unpacked clothes.

In the morning, he was appropriately abashed & contrite, but made no effort at amends. (No laundry or anything.)

Pat and I looked at the box of his urine-soaked clothes and made the obvious joke ("Wow, the world's most literal interpretation of "trickle down theory").

He was lazy, of course. When his dishes piled in the sink, he'd summon his parents' maid (named Carmen, I swear -- even though it sounds too cliched to be true. Are all maids to rich white families named Carmen or Consuela?)

Now, do you want to guess his politics? You have 3 guesses. (And if you need all 3, you're ADORABLE!)

Hard-core fiscal conservative, naturally. 

In America, anyone can make it if you work hard! If you're poor, you're lazy! Or less intelligent or you made bad decisions or have a multitude of moral / attitudinal deficiencies!

Pat and I once heard him yell to his girlfriend during an argument, defiant pride and righteousness pouring out in his voice "I worked hard for everything I have! "

And he believed it, too. Deep into his core, he absolutely believed it. They all do. 

It takes a very unusual person to recognize -- TRULY recognize -- the opportunities and advantages they've been afforded.

And if we tried to reason with him, and offered some simple truths like:

1.) "Who gave you first 'job'? Your father. You were the boss' son. Do you understand that other builders would have to labor for DECADES to get the contracts you got at age 21?"

Or:
2.) "Your father's company built this house and gave it to you. And now you pocket rental income , which is passive income. That's the thing about capital gains. WE are the ones working. Pat and me. WE are the ones working for everything you have. You sat back and collected the fruits of OUR labor.

Or:
3.) "In the 8 weeks of this summer, you've taken more time off from your job than Pat and I do in the past entire year, almost combined. I'm not really sure that 'I worked hard for everything I have had!' is a boast you can legitimately make....."

... he'd not have understood. Dismissed us a jealous, no doubt.

For the 1%, it is very convenient to believe that wealth is directly correlated to hard work and talent.

**
One night his parents were kind enough to invite us to a barbecue at their estate. I swear, it was like walking into The Great Gatsby. Outrageous wealth on display.

Chris' younger brother was holding court at one of the tables, expostulating on "what a great country America is -- anyone, rich or poor, can go the hospital if they break a leg....."

"Really??" I said. "Try breaking a leg, or getting cancer, as a poor person versus a wealthy. A world of difference, an entire universe! And PS: the care at the hospital isn't free. That poor guy will be so hounded for payment for the rest of his life, he'll start to wish he'd just let the leg stay broken!"

But how would he know that? How could he?

So he said: "Read Ayn Rand" and literally turned his back, signaling our conversation was over. He was done with me. Enough, peasant. 

So. That is my story of Chris and his family of 1%ers.

Now, I flip it over to the other side of the story. The working poor.

When the summer was over, we hired two movers to help us. They started at 5 a.m . (an hour Chris had never seen unless from the other side, after a night of carousing).

They were from Mexico and didn't speak English very well. Also, they were physically small -- wiry and barely taller than me, and I'm only 5'2".

Still, in spite of their size, they carried a queen bed, a massive dining room table, and so forth, up and down flights of stairs and into a waiting truck

Difficult to fathom what kind of mettle and inner strength was keeping them on their feet, step after step. 

They smiled, almost deferentially, the whole time. Just as kind-natured as could be.

We bought them lunch, burgers and soda, and they gobbled it on the porch. We begged them: "Please, come inside. It's so hot & humid out there! Please, come inside where it's cool and eat."

With those deferential smiles, they refused. They seemed to say, "Please, no, we couldn't."

It reminded me of the antebellum, plantation-era South. Like eating inside Chris' fancy house would have been over-stepping. It disconcerted to see that. 

A few years later, after candidate Obama had his interaction with the awful, cretinous "Joe the Plumber", I started to see bumper stickers that read: 

"Spread my work ethic, not my wealth."

On behalf of those two movers, I wanted to peel those bumper stickers off the cars and shove them up the, well, you know, the same same orifice on their bodies from whence most of their ideas came.  😏

See, a fair-sized percentage of citizens in this country would look at these movers in their poverty and call them lazy.

Or assume they spent all their money on, I dunno, booze or whatever the hateful stereotype is.

Or want them out of "our" country, just because.

It's as cruel as it is ignorant.

**

Last time I posted this, Pat reminded me of how our tenancy in Chris' home ended.

Chris sent us our share of the water bill. 

Impossible, we thought, this bill is far too high. After weeks of emails, he would not budge. "That's just how much you owe, and that's all there is to it," he's say.

Finally, Pat called the water company, who assured there was no way a private residence could run a bill that high. In fact, the water bill he gave us was for his family's collection of homes.

Further, without going too much into detail there was no way it was an innocent mistake.

Why a person who was born into more wealth than Pat and I could ever imagine would try to con us, I have no idea. 

Maybe he considered us, the dumb proletariat punching a clock and driving beat-up cars, so beneath him that stealing from us was no greater a sin than stepping on an ant.

We didn't matter. We're nothing. Ayn Rand told him so.

Truly, I think that explains a lot of how the very wealthy plutocrats can treat the working poor the way they do.

Morning Meditation - Jeremiah 5, the Poor and the Rich

The Lord has a complaint against the people: They have refused to take correction.
They have made their faces harder than rock.
They have refused to turn back.

In defense, Jeremiah says:
These are only the poor, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the LORD, the law of their God.

Let me go to the rich, says Jeremiah.
And speak truth to them.
Surely they know the way of the LORD, the law of their God.

But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds.

Jeremiah seeks to defend the hard-hearted and the obtuse by

suggesting to God that they are disadvantaged, they're the poor; they simply haven't the wherewithal to make sound judgments.

Well, for what it's worth, hats off to Jeremiah for trying to find some defense of the people in their social and economic status. In other words, they're disadvantaged.

So, don't blame them, O LORD. Give them a break.

I'll go to the rich instead, says Jeremiah, who have all the advantages of life: status and schooling, learning and leisure, the wherewithal to know what the truth would be and your ways, O God. Surely, they'll know. The burden belongs to them, to those with much advantage in the race of life. Those to whom much is given, much is expected.

But, alas alack. It is not the case, as Jeremiah finds.

The rich, who ought to know to better, don't. They have broken the laws of life and love; they, too, have hardened their hearts against the will of God.

Those who should know better, don't.

And along with the poor, whom the rich have manipulated, the whole of the nation turns from God and, in willfulness and desire, seeks its own way.

Hate What Is Evil ... Romans 12

"Hate what is evil," says Paul the Apostle.

That means to reject ... utterly.
To have nothing to do with it.
To turn one's back to it.
And flee.

Hence, Jesus.
To "hate" one's family, if necessary.

To be ready to step away.
Step aside.
If the family, for some reason or the other.
Should impede the flow of faith.
And not just faith, as something held within the mind and heart.
But faith lived.
Faith of the feet.
Faith on the ground.

Families sometimes impede that faith with concern.
"We fear for your safety."
"We only want the best."
"You'll never make any money at it."
"We want you to be happy."

When faith is impeded by family love.
Or is it love?
What is it, but maybe something dark and wicked?
Jesus is clear: some stuff is all dressed up in pretty clothes.
But it's all lies.
Lies from the pit of hell.

Reject if needed.
Family and all.
Friends, too.
It's that kind of world.
Then, and now.
Though some times have been a bit easier.
And faith has seemed to be a lark.
A walk in the park.
Something cool for the kids.
And great youth groups.
And games and praying for friends who are yet damned.
For their lack of faith.
Moody Bible Institute.
And all the rest.
Jargon and junk.

Hate what is evil.

And hold fast to what is good.

Powerful stuff.
Truth that stings.
The cross that's heavy.

I'd rather my cross be a lapel pin.
Wouldn't you?
Or a necklace to grace my neck.
Or a bracelet, or a logo on my t-shirt.
A badge of pride: "I'm saved; too bad for you."

But crosses are made for shoulders.
Crosses are heavy and crude.
And splintered.

They've been used before.
There's blood on them from others.
Others who have passed this way.
To death.

And great is the evil that wears an expensive suit.
Or a lovely dress from Paris.
And quotes the Bible.
And tells of Jesus.
Great is that evil that deludes and deceives and decorates itself with goodness.

Hate what is evil.

Hold fast to what is good.

Don't let it go, no matter what others might say.
Don't let it go, and lose a chance for the golden moment.
The truth, that alone sets any of us free.
And not just me and mine.

But you and yours.
The truth that liberates from the lies and the legions.
The prisons of the system, the laws of the lawless.
The rules of those who know no rule but their own wealth and power.

Truth that liberates.
The good that saves.
Hold fast to what is good.

Hate what is evil.

Evangelicals, Crazy Mad in Love with Donald

Power!

That's the Evangelical Way - the way, the truth and the life.

The roots of it are deep, but in my recent memory, one has to go no further than the snake handlers of West Virginia and Kentucky ... in those deep and shadowy hollers, filled with the wreckage of mines abandoned and lives bent and damaged, the reading, the spurious reading, from Mark's gospel, about handling snakes, became a central element in worship.

To handle something evil and overcome it ... to dance with it, kiss it, play with it, and not be harmed by it - that's power, that's glory, that the Evangelical Dead End.

Because the snake sometimes bites, and people die.

And if the folks liked you, well, then, God called you home ... it was your time ... God said so.

And if they didn't like you, well, then, you failed ... you didn't have enough faith ... there was sin in your life and you didn't trust Je-e-sus ... and our god is a punishing god ... so, no tears shed - ya' had it coming.

And that's power ... power over evil, and power over death, and the power of judgment.

But on a more sophisticated level, Billy Graham and his crusades, his anti-union crusades, anti-communist crusades, his pro-capitalism crusades ... Jesus died for your sins, so that you can go to heaven when your brief span of years is done ... this earth isn't your home, but heaven is, and Jesus, the Jesus I proclaim, will get you there ... so, come forward now, and give your life to Jesus. You don't need your unions, your agitation, your FDR dreams of a better life; you just need Jesus.

And that's power ... ultimate power ... because you're heaven-bound, and your crummy relatives aren't ... and neither are those raucous Catholic neighbors next door, nor that Jew-boss of yours ... they won't get there, but you will ... you'll have the last laugh.

And that's power.

Then add to that the healers of every malady,  and the purveyors of wealth, health and happiness, and you end up with power ... and if heaven isn't quite the goal it used to be, then big homes and fast cars and Wall-Street-sized investments will do nicely. Heaven's bling, here and now ... Tammy Faye eyelashes and Jan Crouch hair ... and more miracles than you can shake a stick at.

Megachurches and Oral Roberts' Praying Hands ... miracle stories to keep the cash-cow happy and producing ... the woman who threw away her pills and the sweet little kid who no longer needs his wheelchair ... wow, that's power, too.

And do worship, of course, with the latest gimmicks and gizmos and trends and Twitter ... keep it thin and dazzling ... and preacher, wear those untucked shirts and pressed jeans ... but it's still the same ol' Je-e-sus who'll get you what you want - hey, you're a child of the King ... and if you think positive, if you give your tithe and then some, if you hate abortionists and if you despise homo-sex-u-als, well, then, you're better than they are, much better, and god loves you.

And that's power.

And so are guns ... bang ... there ya' go ... to protect my family and keep us safe ... and someday, when the Anti-Christ comes,  and maybe he's already here in that man in the white house ... we'll be ready with our bottled water and our guns ... and off to the woods we'll go ... no people of color, or course, just the White Bread, please ... whistling Dixie.

And that's power.

And if god hasn't punished anyone lately, then go after the Muslims, go after the poor, who are nothing but leeches on the godly system of Capitalism, leeches who make you feel bad, leeches who make bad choices, compared to your good choices, and they smell bad and do drugs.

And that's power.

So, no wonder, is it?

That Evangelicals are crazy mad in love with Donald Trump.