Sum people say
Show me the money
Only taking
That folding
Money
Maid of paper
Illegal to ink for won self
You’re money or you’re life
Weather helled up
Or razing heaven
Our soles speak
As bodies of evidence
And life stiles of the rich and famous
Calling out
Be the change
Beholden to common cents
More than just
A tinkle in the pants
Pissing off the powers that be
In my book, any poem that can incorporate wetting won’s pants and pissing off the powers that be can’t be all bad. This poem taps perhaps the most fundamental divide in moral life: do we serve God or mammon, the worldly powers, the powers that be. In this poem, I don’t mention God per se, but instead referred to “you’re life.” I’ll give a tip of the hat to those uncomfortable with any notion of God. “Life” or “love” is a synonym-spiced confection more palatable to some.
In this crazy postmodern milieu that we live in, the revered field of of science, with its deep commitment to smoking out causality, has mysteriously led to widespread convictions of randomness. This perhaps began its accelerative phase with the genius of Darwin pinning his monumental theory of evolution to the notion of randomness. Concrete evidence has proven the theory of evolution as a powerful scientific tool for accounting for the origin of species. Of course, explaining things backwards is much easier than predicting the nature of future evolution, other than predicting that we will evolve in some random (sic) way. Randomness is a notion at least as resistant to a coherent cosmology and worldview as the notion of God. More troubling, randomness, that which has neither antecedent or predictability/causality is exactly the mythology that science is designed to debunk. While inserting a “miracle” that cannot be measured by science by either observation or in principle may be irresistible if you can convince others to go along with it, but it is not science. Randomness is no more a scientific principle than God. Randomness is not a scientific principle — as God is not. This facet of the philosophy of science can only be ignored at our own peril. Quite telling, the field of mathematics has failed to identify any form of mathematics that gives adequate support for the unproven assertion of randomness. Randomness can rightly be pursued as a hypothesis within metaphysics, the realm in which God is explored. Still, randomness strikes me as antimatter in the matter of coherency. We do know that any complete coherence MUST contain more true statements than ANY possible logical system can contain within itself. This is a space that is in principle incompletely accessible by science and mathematics. This is a space big enough and unknown enough for God and free will to reside or originate. Is such a neighborhood the zip code for randomness? At best, it can not be proven by science or mathematics.
Here is a little more on Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, the mathematical proof under-girding such thoughts:
“In 1931, the Czech-born mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that within any given branch of mathematics, there would always be some propositions that couldn’t be proven either true or false using the rules and axioms… of that mathematical branch itself. You might be able to prove every conceivable statement about numbers within a system by going outside the system in order to come up with new rules and axioms, but by doing so you’ll only create a larger system with its own unprovable statements. The implication is that all logical system of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.
Moving to a cultural level, the affection for randomness has brought us to an infection with randomness in everyday life, reflecting both some nihilistic sense of life and sense of humor: “That was so random.” Our sense of life and humor has been moving from being centered in an elegantly interconnected system to a severed existence plagued by events “coming out of nowhere” — the antithesis of both scientific and religious worldviews. Is it any wonder that we are possessed by notions of a zombie apocalypse, a world populated by those who are both dead and alive — or is that neither dead nor alive?
I think that Bob Dylan may have stated it about as bluntly and poetically as anyone, in his song, Gotta Serve Somebody (full lyrics below). “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord/But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Of course, the popularity of the devil or the Lord seems to be in decline. So, for many, the love triangle between self, neighbor, and the mystery of mysteries is reduced to self and neighbor — and perhaps nature (creation).
Well enough, such truth is still great enough to fill many lifetimes. Wee fight for one another to a void being reduced to a mirror monetizable entity. Most have a palpable sense of what money is, what worldly power looks like, and the rules into which it invites us into its service. And still, what is the opposite of serving money? Is serving money just a vain vocation for the terminally unimaginative? Perhaps the opposite of serving money involves living a life free of attachments to material security or cultural status. Whatever there is in life that money cannot buy, I see as that which is truly valuable — able to bring a present with authentic integrity and a future that cannot be bought, only given to one another.
To me, money seems to be one of the least interesting things in life. Personally, I am in wonder at both the abundant curiosities present in scientific discoveries to date and beyond any imagined horizon AND the mysteries of the heart, my own and others, which inspire countless souls to risk life for more life, and to go where no mere scientist dares. Can we serve awe and give that which can only be proven to exist by giving it. Life and love awe weighs fine a way. Serve it up!
Gotta Serve Somebody (by Bob Dylan)
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You might be a rock ‘n’ roll addict prancing on the stage
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage
You may be a business man or some high-degree thief
They may call you doctor or they may call you chief
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk
You may be the head of some big TV network
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame
You may be living in another country under another name
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a construction worker working on a home
You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome
You might own guns and you might even own tanks
You might be somebody’s landlord, you might even own banks
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side
You may be workin’ in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair
You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk
Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray
You may call me anything but no matter what you say
Still, you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
