A pot of gold – Movin on up
As a child I often heard the lamentations of my mother and her shame, which inevitably spread to cover my siblings and I. The shame was the absence of proof that we were as successful as others in her family, the neighbors or anyone who appeared to have access to “more” than we did – more possessions, more tangible proof that we are part of the have and not the have not’s – that we were those who gave our used excesses to “the least of these” and not one of the least of these dependent on the pity of the haves.
There was a television show entitled “The Jeffersons” about a black family whose goal was to share in the so called American Dream (read U. S. Dream). The theme song whose lyrics were written by Jeff Barry and Ja’net Dubois included lines such as:
Well, we’re movin’ on up (movin on up)
To east side (movin on up)
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
….
Fish don’t fry in in the kitchen;
Beans don’t burn on the grill.
…
Now we’re up in the big leagues
Getting’ our turn at bat
Capitalism, the absence of the smells of a community, isolation, and success all morphed into one. Even many of the churches and church leaders bought into the identification of success and wealth evidenced in the lifestyle of their leaders and their dress.
We live in a country, which continues to use religion to try to force people to equate success with the imposition of restrictions, which have little to do with the professed theology while many church leaders flaunt the throwing off the chains of those restrictions.
We live in an age when we continue to buy what we do not need which then ends up in storage facilities for which we pay rent while we continue to convince ourselves and our children that we must “make America (read United States) great again” by being more powerful and more materially successful; thus more morally superior.
We hold dear to our guns so that we can protect a way of life, which leaves little time for families and no time for community. We laud the action of students such as those from Parkland while decrying very similar courage of teens in the Black Lives Matter movement.
We seem to have less spirituality, more addiction, and more mental illness. We suffer from erectile dysfunction or the illusion that a firm erection into old age will hide the misery of being put out to pasture because we are no longer needed or we need younger workers who will work for cheaper wages. We insist that college is the key to education and, yet, students amass debt, which insures that they “behave” while they pay off student debt while appearing to be successful to justify the student debt.
Perhaps we need to continually reexamine what counts as success. Is success a spiritual concept or goal? If so, how does that affect what we mean by “movin on up”.
Perhaps we need to reexamine the meaning of “freedom from” as well as “freedom to”.
Last night I listened to the story and the stories of Sorel Venter (Adventures in Elegance). Both his story and stories tell of courage, freedom, enthusiasm for learning and the willingness to continually redefine success. I want to keep putting myself in front of such teachers so that I do not fall into the trap of “movin on up”.
Written February 28, 2018
As a child I often heard the lamentations of my mother and her shame, which inevitably spread to cover my siblings and I. The shame was the absence of proof that we were as successful as others in her family, the neighbors or anyone who appeared to have access to “more” than we did – more possessions, more tangible proof that we are part of the have and not the have not’s – that we were those who gave our used excesses to “the least of these” and not one of the least of these dependent on the pity of the haves.
There was a television show entitled “The Jeffersons” about a black family whose goal was to share in the so called American Dream (read U. S. Dream). The theme song whose lyrics were written by Jeff Barry and Ja’net Dubois included lines such as:
Well, we’re movin’ on up (movin on up)
To east side (movin on up)
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
….
Fish don’t fry in in the kitchen;
Beans don’t burn on the grill.
…
Now we’re up in the big leagues
Getting’ our turn at bat
Capitalism, the absence of the smells of a community, isolation, and success all morphed into one. Even many of the churches and church leaders bought into the identification of success and wealth evidenced in the lifestyle of their leaders and their dress.
We live in a country, which continues to use religion to try to force people to equate success with the imposition of restrictions, which have little to do with the professed theology while many church leaders flaunt the throwing off the chains of those restrictions.
We live in an age when we continue to buy what we do not need which then ends up in storage facilities for which we pay rent while we continue to convince ourselves and our children that we must “make America (read United States) great again” by being more powerful and more materially successful; thus more morally superior.
We hold dear to our guns so that we can protect a way of life, which leaves little time for families and no time for community. We laud the action of students such as those from Parkland while decrying very similar courage of teens in the Black Lives Matter movement.
We seem to have less spirituality, more addiction, and more mental illness. We suffer from erectile dysfunction or the illusion that a firm erection into old age will hide the misery of being put out to pasture because we are no longer needed or we need younger workers who will work for cheaper wages. We insist that college is the key to education and, yet, students amass debt, which insures that they “behave” while they pay off student debt while appearing to be successful to justify the student debt.
Perhaps we need to continually reexamine what counts as success. Is success a spiritual concept or goal? If so, how does that affect what we mean by “movin on up”.
Perhaps we need to reexamine the meaning of “freedom from” as well as “freedom to”.
Last night I listened to the story and the stories of Sorel Venter (Adventures in Elegance). Both his story and stories tell of courage, freedom, enthusiasm for learning and the willingness to continually redefine success. I want to keep putting myself in front of such teachers so that I do not fall into the trap of “movin on up”.
Written February 28, 2018
RSS Feed