Christmas time is past. Thank goodness. Now we can get back to being nice to each other. Does anyone else think that Xmas has become a misery? Money, blather, and triumphalism ruining the arrival of a Messiah who abhored all of the above?
Anyway, I was listening to a little Pete Seeger today as a palate cleanser, and that got me thinking.
Unionism is quite dead, but the ideas of solidarity, and brotherhood/sisterhood live on, or do they?
I was reading in Harpers about black power and the civil rights movement. They are dead too, but why is all that gone?
We the people. Most of us scraping by. We want health insurance, we want more family time, we want better communities. And the best community I was with this holiday season was at a pagan party. So there you go. A close second was the party at my church where we celebrated Las Posadas. We were having a pseudo spanish/hispanic party when real immigrants/hispanics showed up. They shared their carols and songs with us. Showed us how to have real fun with a pinata, woke up what would have been, otherwise, a boring, white, old people's party. It was unexpected, and it was bonding, and it was fun! One million words on immigration and on the "meaning of Christmas" were best expressed by pagans giving gifts and enjoying being a community, and spanish speaking members of our community invading our xmas celebration.
Yet, we too often drift to things to make us happy. I do it myself. When, we the people. We the non-judgemental, easy going, party happy, fun-loving people just need to open our hearts to others, instead of walling ourselves up with fear, greed, and things.
Jesus says "Take all that you have, and give it to the poor". Not just to help them, but to knock down the walls between the two.
The Gospel of Thomas has Jesus saying "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first until we all become one!" There, is the kingdom of God. Here, and now. We can have it, they just don't sell it anywhere.
Here endeth the lesson. Happy New Year!!!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Charity, though, cannot work efficiently enough, however, to solve intractable social problems. Community can, but charity is simply a twist on capitalism. Charity does not effectively move wealth around. Tax policy could move billions in one stroke. Billions poured into charity can never be that efficient.
Charity is a way for the rich to excercise favoritism and discrimination, whilest government can make sure that no one is "left behind".
Charity is a lottery. Community based socialism mixed with capitalism-lite would function much more efficiently.
The best way to reduce the current rich/poor gap is still tax policy. The change in tax policy in the 80s along with corporate protection under the 14th amendment (equating corporate rights with individual rights) is destroying our country and turning it into a corporate oligarchy.
Charity is window dressing to such economic destruction and the destruction of community.
Post a Comment