{"id":1428,"date":"2014-03-28T15:47:23","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T20:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1428"},"modified":"2014-03-28T16:43:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T21:43:16","slug":"poem-we-wont-be-food-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/28\/poem-we-wont-be-food-again\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: We Won’t Be Food Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

I would rather<\/span>
\nBe Job<\/span>
\nLess than<\/span>
\nRenounce<\/span>
\nA living wager<\/span>
\nAnd know place to lie<\/span>
\nMy head<\/span>
\nMy heart<\/span>
\nMade homeless<\/span>
\nIn loo of<\/span>
\nA fast fooled nation<\/span>
\nFor going<\/span>
\nThe beast<\/span>
\nWee<\/span>
\nCan due<\/span>
\nHitched to number one<\/span>
\nNumber too<\/span>
\nAs on the line<\/span>
\nFor given debts<\/span>
\nIn place of<\/span>
\nSolemn assemblies<\/span>
\nAnd last riots<\/span>
\nAs wreck we him<\/span>
\nFor the masses<\/span>
\nLeft too<\/span>
\nStarve<\/span>
\nAs a full groan man<\/span>
\nEschewing<\/span>
\nA distended belly<\/span>
\nAnd infantile grimace<\/span>
\nDis gorging<\/span>
\nTo which I object<\/span>
\nA single finger<\/span>
\nAnd vomiting<\/span>
\nA sour second<\/span>
\nRelative to the toil it evacuates<\/span>
\nAs vying a bowel inconsonance<\/span>
\nAnd those who are but in<\/span>
\nFringe benefits over doo<\/span>
\nBe rated by privilege takers<\/span>
\nOf a hollowed hire power<\/span>
\nPro claim<\/span>
\nThere is no Black day for employment<\/span>
\nThe unanswered trump it<\/span>
\nAs if<\/span>
\nFalling flat to some honky<\/span>
\nReveres discrimination<\/span>
\nAs dark daze per severe<\/span>
\nThe fecund material bound<\/span>
\nNow a mushrooming clerical class<\/span>
\nBeaten too<\/span>
\nA bully pulp it\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>
\nCopious crumbs and the blest whines<\/span>
\nOffering salivation<\/span>
\nLike no me<\/span>
\nBiblically<\/span>
\nThrowing the book at me<\/span>
\nShowing me the works<\/span>
\nAs if in some fooled court<\/span>
\nTaking out<\/span>
\nOn me<\/span>
\nSum type<\/span>
\nOf contract<\/span>
\nKnow labor<\/span>
\nNo food<\/span>
\nNor time travel to<\/span>
\n’79 sense<\/span>
\nFor every dollared earn<\/span>
\nOr as a payday loan<\/span>
\nCash here<\/span>
\nSlipping through my fingers<\/span>
\nEach day<\/span>
\nFor another till<\/span>
\nMy dreams standing still<\/span>
\nIdoling money changers<\/span>
\nOn short order<\/span>
\nCooking the books<\/span>
\nServing as sum batterer<\/span>
\nOr fry guy<\/span>
\nWho is just<\/span>
\nGreased<\/span>
\nAt the end of the day<\/span>
\nPain<\/span>
\nYou less<\/span>
\nThan what<\/span>
\nYou learned<\/span>
\nWith respect to<\/span>
\nMeat grate people<\/span>
\nSeriously toying<\/span>
\n“Be the happy meal”<\/span>
\nAs if<\/span>
\nI whir<\/span>
\nTo halve a cow<\/span>
\nAnd go to town<\/span>
\nDrug by sum ferry tale<\/span>
\nA bout<\/span>
\nWorshipping some magic beings<\/span>
\nStalking skyward<\/span>
\nAs some giant rumble<\/span>
\nTo expose my hide<\/span>
\nWont to grind my bones<\/span>
\nFor their bred<\/span>
\nMy blood smelt<\/span>
\nAs iron away<\/span>
\nFrom their golden cuffs<\/span>
\nRazing my shackles once again<\/span>
\nI will only ax once<\/span>
\nAs you know not jack<\/span>
\nWeather the heavens fall<\/span>
\nEither I am<\/span>
\nUdderly fed up<\/span>
\nOr my last words herd<\/span>
\nEat me<\/span>
\nAs I will only be<\/span>
\nFood once<\/span>
\nIt’s just<\/span>
\nAwe in a daze work<\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote this poem today, all in a days work!\u00a0 This poem was triggered by my experience last night at a community meeting, “Faith Conversations on Income Inequality.”\u00a0 I was somewhat disappointed that of the two hours, less than 15 minutes was conversation.\u00a0 The meeting was mostly didactic, with two detailed presentations, a short film well documenting the existence of actual poor working people in our very state of Ohio, and a short small group exercise (where some conversation occurred).<\/p>\n

The kicker for the evening was after the meeting when conversing with a woman who I had never met proclaimed the disproportionately too-often cited and familiar, “If a person doesn’t work, then they don’t deserve to eat” (see 2 Thessalonians 3:10).\u00a0 Of course, the key word and concept in this passage is an unwillingness<\/em> to work.\u00a0 I might add dignified and humane<\/em> work.\u00a0 Either way, it certainly doesn’t apply to people who can’t find work.\u00a0 Further, in the previous verse, the apostles speaking about their own self-support when visiting the Thessalonians, say, “We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help<\/em>, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate.\u00a0 This seems to state that they did claim a right to such help (food), but were modeling an additional value of not being a burden on others.\u00a0 If the apostles accepted help, when they were able to pay their own way, and this caused a burden to another, then they shouldn’t take such a necessary resource from another.\u00a0 The higher way modeled by the apostles seems more apt as a critique of people unjustly benefiting from paying poverty wages, thus causing a burden to others, than as a critique of food as a human right.\u00a0 Perhaps a less sophisticated yet more easily understood response to worrying about hungry people getting too much food is Uggghhh!<\/em><\/p>\n

I had really hoped for an opportunity to share personal experiences and perspectives on faith and poverty, or income inequality.\u00a0 For better or worse, I’ve thought about such things my whole life.\u00a0 Still, I am actually eager to learn more, as I continue on my journey.\u00a0 The story of dealing with poverty seems to me to be full of good news-bad news.\u00a0 In my case, the bad news is that technically, I have lived in poverty most of the last decade — technically, meaning that my average income has been under the federal poverty guidelines.\u00a0 The good news is that I am the wealthiest person I know — of course, I don’t get out much!\u00a0 Such a conundrum has provided much experience and raw material upon which to meditate regarding what is true wealth.<\/p>\n

One main point that I believe could help bring a more balanced perspective in our dealing with poverty is this: from a spiritual perspective, we must give equal time to spiritual poverty.\u00a0 This is perhaps most succinctly captured by Mother Teresa, “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”\u00a0 I see Jesus as quite clearly spelling out the dividing line: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)\u00a0 And, of course, serving God is inextricably linked with serving our neighbors: ” ‘The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’\u00a0 ‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked.\u00a0 John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’ ” (Luke 3:9-11)<\/p>\n

A corollary of this spiritual view of poverty is that we must not stigmatize the poor, or dishonor God’s special relationship with them.\u00a0 I half-jokingly put this under the moniker of: “You say poverty<\/em> like it’s a bad thing!”\u00a0 A couple of generations ago, Latin American theologians developed the concept of God’s “preferential option for the poor.”\u00a0 In part, this refers to the special relationship that the poor, disenfranchised, and marginalized have with God.\u00a0 Their vulnerability manifest by oppression in the world creates an openness to God’s way.\u00a0 This openness fosters a greater intimacy, deeper understanding, and easier access to living in harmony with God’s laws (ultimate reality).\u00a0 Of course, harmony with God’s laws is counter-cultural to the status quo and the powers that be.\u00a0 Intriguingly though, the oppressed already stare down the brutal realities of the powers that be every day; so, being counter-cultural is much less of a leap “of faith” than those who benefit from the status quo.\u00a0 This is perhaps the most simple reason why top down change rarely, if ever, benefits the poor more than the rich.\u00a0 Thus, the poor are already primed to adopt God’s ways, as the world’s ways sure as hell aren’t working for them.\u00a0 Jesus is a striking example of acting in accordance with this reality.\u00a0 Jesus spent the vast majority of his time with the dispossessed, and “regular” folks, the 99% if you will.\u00a0 In a stroke of spiritual genius, Jesus planted his message among people who were both most open to God’s message and had their material interests aligned to move in a direction parallel to God’s ways, including, of course, justice.\u00a0 No doubt, Jesus played a prophetic role, in directly confronting the powers that be, whether religious, political, or economic elites.\u00a0 Such confrontations were likely inevitable.\u00a0 Even so, Jesus brought an unwavering dignity, intimacy, and authority (street cred) to such encounters.\u00a0 Jesus did not shy from his fully humanizing ways, even in the face of dehumanizing forces.\u00a0 This was a palpable measure of how Jesus loved his enemies.\u00a0 This is God’s ways manifest.\u00a0 The poor have fewer barriers to accessing such ways. Let’s learn from the poor!<\/p>\n

I have lived among affluent people of faith most of my life.\u00a0 For the affluent, the vast majority of us in the so-called developed world, I am convinced that voluntary poverty and simplicity is the most powerful tool to transform our world, God’s creation, into ways friendly to abundant life.\u00a0 I have drawn this conclusion from my profound failure to convince rich westerners to truly care about the world’s poorest.\u00a0 I am a formidable debater, both informed and with heart.\u00a0 Still, the misery of my failure to convince others with words is exceeded only, and greatly, by the misery of the world’s poorest.\u00a0 I cannot escape the weight of my experience that the affluence of westerners, including myself, and the material conflicts of interest we are embedded in, is the single most important factor preventing such a conversion.\u00a0 Better aligning our material interests with the poor, through voluntary poverty and simplicity, can unleash a cascading journey where the soul’s force begins to flow more freely, as water invites gravity to do its work — and the most grave law unbroken, that of love.\u00a0 This poem of mine alludes to the freedom gained by simple living:<\/p>\n

Dining with Kings and Queens
\nCourtly balls
\nKnightly duels
\nAnd priestly indulgences
\nYou can avoid it all
\nIf only you are happy
\nEating beans<\/p>\n

Probably the greatest illusion humans face is seeing wealth (and its companions, status and power) as an answer to all of their problems.\u00a0 Surely, people have material needs, and those needs going unmet is a tragedy.\u00a0 However, once one’s basic material needs are met, wealth becomes a disability to the individual and a disease to society.\u00a0 There is a great body of psychological and sociological evidence that increasing wealth makes us less compassionate and less generous.\u00a0 In short, wealth serves as a wedge between people and God.\u00a0 Science confirms the truth of not being able to serve two masters.\u00a0 People can, and do, argue about the role of material scarcity in the problems of poverty — just witness political wranglings about budget-busting social programs in the richest nation the world has ever known.\u00a0 Nonetheless, there is one pervasive and undeniable fact: there is, and has been for at least centuries, enough physical resources to more than meet the material needs of every human on the planet.\u00a0 In this light, spiritual poverty is exposed.\u00a0 We can solve material want; we choose not.\u00a0 It is not a close call!<\/p>\n

Poverty worldwide is endemic.\u00a0 Billions of people live on $2 per day or less.\u00a0 Those most likely to be the poorest are women and children — so much for family values.\u00a0 People of color are also at much greater risk.\u00a0 Those most likely to go hungry are those who grow food, our farmers.\u00a0 The only way this can happen is to literally steal food from their hands.\u00a0 The rich claim a hugely disproportional share of the world’s resources, including the productive labors of billions.\u00a0 All the wile, pawning sham scarcity as an excuse for their hoarding and ravenous ways.\u00a0 Gandhi captured it well when asked what he thought of Western civilization.\u00a0 He responded, “I think it would be a great idea.”\u00a0 I concur.<\/p>\n

With untrammeled globalization, poverty can only be adequately viewed as a global problem.\u00a0 The causes of poverty cannot be isolated within one country.\u00a0 We, as a world, are in the same boat — though, undoubtedly, there is an increasing chasm between the accommodations of first and third class.\u00a0 Debt, just as in biblical times, is used to enslave people.\u00a0 We are told that the world is in great debt, accepting it as gospel truth.\u00a0 Yet, to whom exactly are we are in debt?\u00a0 Pay no attention to the money changers behind the curtain.\u00a0 Exploitation and robbing of natural resources unjustly enriches the wealthier.\u00a0 Such profitable cleverness is called business.\u00a0 Meanwhile, non-prophet organizations stand by impotent to counter this unseemly necessity.\u00a0 And governments suffer from electile dysfunction. The good news is that the cancerous idol of endless economic “growth” may not destroy creation, with such abundance and ingenuity.\u00a0 Praise be to God!\u00a0 If only, God forbid, the dream of a worldwide “middle class” can be averted.\u00a0 Work.\u00a0 Buy.\u00a0 Consume.\u00a0 Die.<\/p>\n

Less poetically put, the “powers that be” work on a global scale.\u00a0 This juggernaut of globalization reduces humans to economic beings in a consumer culture.\u00a0 People become means to ends, not being of sacred worth and inherent dignity.\u00a0 To enforce this state of affairs, wars are waged as “needed.”\u00a0 These wars, unsurprisingly, do not serve the interests of the dispossessed.\u00a0 This global reality is rooted in a distinct worldview: poverty is not the problem; poverty is the solution.\u00a0 While a tsunami of rhetoric speaks of jobs, unemployment serves to lower wages, not just of the unfortunate unskilled, but of skilled labor too.\u00a0 More unemployment is good for (someone else’s) business.\u00a0 And if you missed that memo, perhaps the desperation of unemployment and wage slavery has you occupied.\u00a0 Such desperation can serve as a distraction and thwart a healthy, functioning civil society (see electile dysfunction).<\/p>\n

There is an African proverb which says: where there is no wealth there is no poverty.\u00a0 This ancient wisdom emanates from the experience of humans over many generations and cultures that concentrated wealth creates poverty, that is, depends on poverty. There is a powerful illusion that wealth brings wisdom, that the rich must really know something that we don’t.\u00a0 Well, if they do, it’s most likely occult or a cult.\u00a0 I cite the incisive lyrics of “If I were a rich man” from the play, Fiddler on the Roof:<\/p>\n

Posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes!<\/em>
\nAnd it won’t make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong.<\/em>
\nWhen you’re rich, they think you really know!<\/em><\/p>\n

The truth is much simpler, and more stark: the rich need the poor; the poor don’t need the rich.\u00a0 For those who might cite the droll biblical retort, “the poor will always be with us,” have you pondered this: if you think the poor are hard to get rid of, try the rich!<\/p>\n

The diseased worldview of consumerism and capitalism has at least on Achilles’ heel.\u00a0 This rests on the utter inability to answer a fundamental question in life: how much is enough?\u00a0 Capitalism thrives on convincing you that you never have enough, you are perpetually lacking something (which we happen to be selling), and by extension: you are lacking.\u00a0 This turns the Gospel’s worldview upside down.\u00a0 The good news is that you are enough; God made you that way.\u00a0 Return to this truth, and capitalism recedes to a perfunctory process describing the nominal exchange of goods — and the goods are actually good!<\/p>\n

The meeting on faith conversations about income inequality focused on the United States.\u00a0 While poverty extends far beyond, and is rooted in, the larger world, the U.S. can serve as an enlightening case study.\u00a0 The U.S. just recently observed the 50th anniversary of the “war on poverty” as declared in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson.\u00a0 [For poetic versions of lessons learned from the “war on poverty,” see my poems, Hungering for Answers<\/a>, and War on Poverty<\/a>]\u00a0 The “war on poverty” is about the same age as me.\u00a0 During my lifetime, the U.S. has grown about three times wealthier in material wealth.\u00a0 Nevertheless, more Americans work, and they work longer hours.\u00a0 Some gains were made in reducing poverty in the early years.\u00a0 However, the overall trend since the late 1970’s has been stagnating or declining wages, especially when compared to skyrocketing worker productivity.\u00a0 Income inequality is higher now in America than in the last hundred years.<\/p>\n

For those with biblical commitments, we are long overdue for a Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25).\u00a0 The year of Jubilee is a Sabbath of Sabbaths.\u00a0 It prescribed forgiveness of debt every seven years.\u00a0 In the fiftieth year — after seven cycles of seven years, not only was all debt forgiven, but all slaves were freed and all land returned to its original owners land.\u00a0 This is the biblical prescription for preventing large concentrations of wealth and persons from being permanently dispossessed from their land and\/or forced into servitude through debt.\u00a0 Let’s make it so!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would rather Be Job Less than Renounce A living wager And know place to lie My head My heart Made homeless In loo of A fast fooled nation For going The beast Wee Can due Hitched to number one … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,174,9,38,15],"tags":[503,563,542,434,294,400,512,87,397,519,331,339,171,335,289,574,516,416,88,205,476,590,538,393,577,108,582,104,401,428,469,432,589,178,414,115,154,485,65,148,446,317,431,506,76,388,282,520,565,24,493,200,408,402,220,157,359,310,273,486,66,206,354,594,658,291,94,17,107,112,110,114,691,530,513,526,567,327,601,31,502,245,106,260,525,128,375,390,237,521,290,531,30,186,406,113,529,421,478,514,203,111,85,549,389,287,380,550,383],"class_list":["post-1428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-top-pun","category-news","category-poems","category-political-action","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-abundance","tag-america","tag-ancient","tag-authority","tag-awe","tag-balance","tag-business","tag-capitalism","tag-change","tag-children","tag-community","tag-compassion","tag-consumerism","tag-conundrum","tag-counter-cultural","tag-creation","tag-culture","tag-debt","tag-dehumanizing","tag-discrimination","tag-disease","tag-disenfranchised","tag-dream","tag-dreams","tag-economic","tag-elite","tag-employment","tag-enemies","tag-equality","tag-experience","tag-failure","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-food","tag-forgiveness","tag-freedom","tag-gandhi","tag-genius","tag-god","tag-government","tag-harmony","tag-hate","tag-heart","tag-heaven","tag-hell","tag-hope","tag-income","tag-inequality","tag-intimacy","tag-jesus","tag-job","tag-jobs","tag-journey","tag-justice","tag-labor","tag-law","tag-life","tag-living-wage","tag-love","tag-meaning","tag-money","tag-oppression","tag-perspective","tag-play","tag-poems","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-political","tag-poor","tag-poverty","tag-power","tag-powers-that-be","tag-preferential-option-for-the-poor","tag-president","tag-privilege","tag-productivity","tag-prophet","tag-proverb","tag-reality","tag-religious","tag-respect","tag-rhetoric","tag-rich","tag-risk","tag-sabbath","tag-sacred","tag-scarcity","tag-science","tag-simplicity","tag-slavery","tag-society","tag-soul","tag-spiritual","tag-state","tag-status","tag-status-quo","tag-time","tag-truth","tag-values","tag-vulnerability","tag-war","tag-wealth","tag-western-civilization","tag-willingness","tag-wisdom","tag-women","tag-work","tag-worldview","tag-worship"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: We Won't Be Food Again | About Top Pun, News, Poems, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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