This is It - Episode 14: Cleansing the Temple

As they drew near to Bethphage, at Mount Olive, Yeshua sent two students, saying, Go into the village. Right away, you’ll find a colt and a donkey. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks you about it, tell them ‘the Teacher needs these’ and they will let you take them.

The students returned with the colt and donkey. Cloaks were spread over them, and some spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the palm trees and strewed them in the road. The throngs of people made a parade, with Yeshua in the midst of them riding the donkey. 

The people called, Hosanna for the son of David! Blessed him that comes in the name of the holy one. Hosanna to the highest heavens!

As the procession entered Jerusalem, the people there were shaken, saying, Who is this? What’s happening?

And the people processing said, This is the prophet Yeshua, the Nazarene.

Yeshua dismounted from the donkey and went into the temple. He threw out the buyers and sellers. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers.

He said, It is written, ‘My house will be known as a house of prayer,’ but you’ve taken the sacred space and made it into a mercantile den of thieves.

Yeshua healed the blind and lame who came up to him. The throng cheered him on with shouts of Hosanna for the son of David!

The high priests and canon lawyers were outraged.  

Yeshua turned and left, his followers going with him. They camped in Bethany.

Next morning, Yeshua was walking back to Jerusalem, in search of breakfast. He saw a fig tree, but found nothing on it but leaves. 

There is no need for a fruitless tree, Yeshua said, and it withered and dried.  

The students were amazed and asked, How could that tree dry up so fast?

And he said, When you pray, you can move mountains. This tree was no longer useful; there was no need to preserve it. If a mountain is holding you back, with prayer, you can move the mountain out of your way.

Returning to the temple, the chief priests asked him, Who do you think you are? By what authority do you do these things?

Yeshua said, If you answer my question, I’ll answer yours.  Where did the mikvah of John come from, heaven or the world?

Any answer they might give, one way or the other, would make them look bad. So, they answered, We don’t know.

Yeshua said, So, you didn’t answer my question. I won’t answer yours.

But, here, I’ll give you another chance. A father had two sons. He went to the first and asked him to go to the field and work. That son at first declined, but then changed his mind and did work in the field. The father asked the second son, who said he would gladly work, but didn’t do any work at all. Which son did as his father asked?

They answered, The first son, of course.

Yeshua said, John came to you and all teaching the path of justice. You did not believe in his mission, but the whores and the toll collectors and other people reviled by you did believe. The people who believe will apprehend the realm of the holy one, regardless of class. The people reviled by you will apprehend the realm before you do.

As it is said, ‘The stone that was rejected by the builder has at last become the chief cornerstone.’ The realm of the holy one is for the people that labor in the fields, whose labors bear fruit that is shared equitably. I tell you, the rejected stone will crush the fruitless.

The Pharisees wanted Yeshua taken into custody, but doing so in a such a public way would make them look bad, for the crowds regarded Yeshua as a prophet. They called some of their students, along with a few of Herod’s men, and approached him, hoping to trap him into confessing that he was against the Roman occupation.

The students of the Pharisees asked him, So, we know you are honest and teach the word of the holy one truthfully. What do you think? Is it okay to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

Yeshua said, Show me the coins given to pay the tax. 

The coins were shown to him. 

Yeshua asked them, Whose picture is on these coins?

They answered, Caesar’s.

He said, Give what is Ceasar’s to him; give to the holy one what belongs to the holy one. Everything belongs to the holy one, and none of it bears a false image.

The students and Herod’s men went away.

Later that day, a group of Sadducees, who did not believe in resurrection, pose a trick question to him: The tradition of Moses says that if the husband of a couple dies without leaving any children, the brother must take in his widow. In one village, a woman married into a family with seven sons. Her husband died. They’d had no children, so he left her as chattel to his brother, who later died without leaving children, and so on through all the brothers of the family. Then the widow died. When the resurrection comes, which of the seven will be her bridegroom?

But Yeshua said, In the realm of the holy one, there are no brides or grooms, only messengers, helpers, angels. In ancient times, the holy one called from the bush, ‘I am. I am of the living, not of the dead.’

Those who heard the teaching were amazed. Later, the Pharisees approached him again and asked Yeshua which of the commandments was most important.

And he said, The most important commandment is the very first one: To love the holy one with all of your heart, all of your spirit, all of your mind. And I say there is a second that works with the first: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. All that is written in the law and the prophets is supported by these two commandments.

He turned to his students and said, Where Moses sat, now the Pharisees and canon lawyers sit. Do what they say, but don’t do what they do. They are not good role models, for they do not practice what they preach, and everything they do is for show. They tax the people and offer no pubic benefit to those in need. They take the best seats and the best food and enjoy being called, ‘Master.’

Don’t try to be a Master, like them; after the holy one, your teacher is your only leader, and you are all a family. The highest person among you will be the servant of all.

Woe to all of the unaccountable fakes and frauds who act as gatekeepers and deny average people any opportunity to enter the realm of the holy one. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets and stoners of ambassadors, now that you have laid to ruin the sacred temple, all the blood you have shed will come back upon you.

Now I will go away and be gone until that time when you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the holy one.’

© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com

A brief note about my literary exploration of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: I have undertaken this exercise having read, sung (in several languages), meditated and prayed on the contents of the Synoptic Gospels (as well as the Non-Synoptic Gospels) for at least 45 years. In that time, I’ve accumulated a bit of a library (which comes as no surprise to those who know me), and I try to follow modern scholarship. Here is a partial list of the authors and books that come to mind as I write these episodes:

Ballentine, Debra Scoggins, The Conflict Myth & the Biblical Tradition; Oxford University Press 2015

Erdman, Bart, various titles

Gaus, Andy, The Unvarnished New Testament; Phanes Press, 1991

Herzog, William R., Parables as Subversive Speech; Westminster John Knox Press, 1991

Louden, Bruce, Greek Myth and the Bible; Routledge, 2019

Tatian, Diatesseron; www.earlychristianwritings.com/diatessaron.html

Wajdenbaum, Philippe, Argonauts of the Desert, Routledge, 2011

Ward, Keith, The Philosopher and the Gospels, Lion Hudson, 2011

Yosef ben Maityahu (Titus Flavius Josephus), various writings

So You Bought Yourself A Band, Redux

To recap from our last episode:

Nemesis, the cold light of truth, awaits you, in every seat, in every concert hall.

Entertain me. Make me smile.

Nemesis is waiting to see and hear what you will deliver.

//

So, time has passed. 

“Back in the Family,” you said, “where it belongs.” And that’s where you began your bait-and-switch, at venues that had been advertising other performers for nearly a year. You donned the requisite striped shirts and made your move. (We note that stills of the old lineup continue to show up in venue promotions, even today…)

But it was soon evident that cracks were forming.

The ham-fisted, litigious takeover immediately turned off longtime fans that might have continued to be your primary audience. You got into brawls on the internet with people. Lawsuits surely won’t build a new fan base, and trademark licensing doesn’t entitle the licensee to threaten tribute bands covering “your” songs… 

You discovered, to your chagrin, that the summer camp you thought came with your purchase deal was actually owned and operated by someone else. (You didn’t do your homework.) You tried to create a new camp, but no one signed up. Quelle surprise! The fans you’d turned your back on were the very ones who had the means to devote to such pastimes; who did you think you were going to attract? Being that you can’t sing or play all that well means it is extremely doubtful you could teach, so what were you planning to offer? It couldn’t have ever been more than a schmooze-and-booze punctuated by posing and boasting, nothing more than a one-night stand.

Swiftly must have come the realization that one set wasn’t enough for a whole show. You discovered you couldn’t sing some songs in the keys they’d been performed in. Three-part harmonies flat-lined into unison. Instrument tuning was, shall we say, problematical. Lame is the patter, and y’all ain’t got rhythm. Adding songs that had never been part of the repertoire, one can only wonder about that. But not taking requests and leaving out some signature tunes audiences have come to expect actually does have an impact in terms of branding, marketing and sales, or so it has been just generally opined in the pages of both the Wall Street Journal and the Hollywood Reporter.

Nemesis has seen the videos, and she has heard the whispering on the wind. 

Interestingly, somewhere along the line the DNA baby got thrown out with the bath water; lo and behold, the thing isn’t really in the family anymore. At this point, the only legacy member is actually the sideman, a non-member.

Then, a fight broke out over the website. For a while, no one who might have wanted to see shows could find out anything about them. The old URL points to some other group; and while there is a new URL for The Group, no one can find it. The investors must be a bit concerned; if they aren’t, they should be.

Spies have informed Nemesis that phone calls had been made to former members, trying to sound out availability to “fill in” or “replace” well before the apparent coup d'état. Most of these parties politely demurred, as involvement could be construed as legitimizing something or someone. People who did step in struggled to perform with you, as the arrangements had been dumbed-down or put into different keys, and signature licks had been ditched. Ultimately, poaching someone from another group can only make it sound better, so that’s one plus for you... 

Email alerts come in from the four corners; there is abundant ticket availability! People who work the venues report arrogance and mistreatment back stage. Believe me, presenters will think twice, if they haven't already done so. Investors must be a bit concerned; if they aren’t, they should be. When any tribute band can play and sing circles around you, who will pay top dollar to hear less than the very best that can be done, to hear you “learn on the job”? 

And this has entertained Nemesis the most: There has been absolutely no need for her to intervene!

Your reputation precedes you. While you can fool some of the people some of the time, you cannot fool them all. What you can do is fool yourselves, as long as ever you want – at a price.

It is said that revenge is a meal best served cold. The sideboard is laid. The wine is chilled and the glasses are filled. It is all just a matter of time. 

Let us raise the parting glass!

Raspberries, strawberries, let us toast with fine wine:
Here's to the songs that we used to love, dying on your vine.

The End

© 2019

https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2017_08_10_archive.html

Addendum: The show at Yoshi's in Oakland CA on 5/15/19 was less than 1/3 sold...

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: What will you do?

Here we are again. Really, here we are, where we’ve always been. That weekend has arrived. What will you do? Will you celebrate?

Last year, we arrived at the 50^thAnniversary of one of the worst years in my personal memory, what should be remembered as one of the worst years in the history of this country. The civil war had been over for nearly a hundred years, but the war was not over, and civility had not been fully achieved. 

So, here we are, a year later and, my friends, I’m sorry to have to impart this to you (if you are not already aware), but the civil war is still not over. I’m loath to believe it, myself. I grieve to have to confess it. We are now more divided as a nation than we have ever been. A seething underbelly of irrational hatred has bubbled to the surface in hideous ways. We see it, we hear it, everywhere. The violence of irrational hatred is killing us and our children. The fear that breeds this irrational hatred seems all the rage, these days.

I have found, in my meanderings through this experience we call life, that once a good person has died, that person’s memory is held up for veneration. While that can be a very good thing and healthy way to deal with the pain of loss, it is a better thing if our veneration of that memory is an impetus to live up the example of the good that person embodied. 

Sadly, all too often our veneration is complicated, clouded or obscured by a tendency toward inactionon our part. This inaction takes two primary forms, both passive: adoration or “let’s have a party” (which must be the most empty form of acknowledgement). A day of service seems a better option, but what if this is merely an obligation ticked off a list, then set aside until next year? Commitment to change isn’t an event that can be handled in a few hours on a single day; this is daily work, a life’s work.

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday (which commemorates the birthday of Dr. King, but is so terribly overshadowed by his violent death), what will you do?

During the past several years, I have shared with my readers memories and nuggets of wisdom I garnered from my late friend Arthur, a sociologist, really a political historian. When he passed away, he left behind various notes and references to books that he did not have in his own extensive library (a fact that will astonish anyone who’d ever been in Arthur’s library), but no outline, no paragraphs that could be expanded into a thesis, no solid leads for anyone to pursue toward a proposed writing project he had preliminarily titled, “Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Unfinished Journey.” Although we had frequently discussed King and his legacy, Arthur’s desire to write on the topic was not something we ever talked about in depth. This essay may contain a thread, weft to the warp, if you will, distilled from my interactions with Arthur.

In the years since Arthur passed away, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and wondering about what Arthur might have brought forward. What would it have revealed, if anything? I have a few thoughts (what a surprise!) that I’ll share.

In a 1957 article for Christian Century, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice”, Dr. King wrote:

… The basic question which confronts the world’s oppressed is: How is the struggle against the forces of injustice to be waged? There are two possible answers. One is resort to the all too prevalent method of physical violence and corroding hatred. The danger of this method is its futility. Violence solves no social problems; it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Through the vistas of time a voice still cries to every potential Peter, “Put up your sword!" The shores of history are white with the bleached bones of nations and communities that failed to follow this command. If the American Negro and other victims of oppression succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle for justice, unborn generations will live in a desolate night of bitterness, and their chief legacy will be an endless reign of chaos.

Later, outlining aspects of Non-Violent Resistance, Dr. King states:

A third characteristic of this method is that the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil. Those of us who struggle against racial injustice must come to see that the basic tension is not between races… The tension… is not between white people and Negro people. The tension is at bottom between justice and injustice… [Emphasis mine.]

And he follows that with:

A fourth point that must be brought out concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the worldmust not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. [Emphasis mine.]

I propose that we pause, take stock and acknowledge that American culture and discourse in 2019 is the very embodiment of that thing Dr. King identified as danger, trap, and ultimate defeat. The struggle in this country is real, it is hateful, it is bitter and bloody—and it is inhuman. We’ve moved way beyond this being about race and class; identity politics has created new races and new classes, new reasons to have a chip on the shoulder, new ways to self-identify as a victim. With all these new divisions, we can all be offended victims, if we so choose. 

I will now entertain a notion that will instantly become unpopular because of it’s undeniable truth: Every step in time from the signing of the Civil Rights Act has been a step away from the obvious intent of equality and justice under the law for all people of the nation. 

Dr. King knew what was at stake in taking up the cause of justice for people of color: He knew that the mantle of equity had to cover the entire nation, all people. This is why he worked to create broad coalitions that included white people, religious people, workers, business leaders, politicians and others. That is what he did, to his dying day. 

What will you do, here, now, from this time forward?

For myself, I am taking time to reflect, reconcile, redress (where I can in the situations I encounter) and rehabilitate. Here are a few examples of what I mean, which I will expand upon through my personal, daily practice:

Reflection: Do I contribute to discourse and narratives that are unproductive? Do I assume I am right? Am truly I open to hear someone else’s wisdom, experience or pain. Is persistence or resistance appropriate to the present situation?

Reconcile: Do my actions and choices match the ethical views I claim? How can I be a factor in restoring unity or equilibrium in situations that occur in daily life? Am I either combative or non-confrontational in the way I handle challenges? How can I better work in cooperation with others toward a positive and joint outcome?

Redress: Can an appropriate remedy be found and implemented for a situation that is unfair or where a wrong has been done? Sometimes we make attempts that are patronizing or otherwise miss the mark; how can we be more sensitive to an appropriate response?

Rehabilitate: We have a lot of individual and collective work to do to vindicate, rebuild and restore people, communities, states of being, collective consciousness, the environment, integrity in our political narratives, truth to power. Where does it all begin? At home, at work, in your town, in our State, everywhere we are. There is much to done; we have to be willing to engage in the work, to strengthen our collective critical thought, and willing to welcome everyone to the party.

At the end of Dr. King’s article for Christian Century, within the context of non-violent resistance, he offers a prayer for us and for this work for human unity:

God grant that we wage the struggle with dignity and discipline. May all who suffer oppression in this world reject the self-defeating method of retaliatory violence and choose the method that seeks to redeem. Through using this method wisely and courageously we will emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man into the bright daybreak of freedom and justice.

Don’t let this be just another holiday weekend. I think the very best way to honor the memory of Dr. King is to continue the journey his untimely death thwarted, to build a world with no double standards, where each person is entitled to and equally accorded dignity, opportunity and justice. 

Keep the dream alive, and make it come true; nothing less will do.

___

Source: Christian Century74 (6 February 1957): 165-167.

9/11 and the Sins of Division

Like the books that fall off shelves into my hands when I’m in book stores (and, yes, that really does happen to me), the universe has been sending me urgent messages about the nature of wholeness. Whether it is my feeling of being an integral part of creation while on a walk in the woods, or hearing someone talk at the grocery checkout stand about how great it is to see people come together after a tragedy, or the minister who talks about the admonition to “Love one another,” or the rabbi who indicates that the waters were divided, but this was pronounced “so,” not “good”… or a whole train of other messages, heard and unheard—well, I guess you could say I’ve had the spectrum of “together” and “apart” on my mind.

Everything that is a part of creation is one great, growing expanse. I’m being simplistic, I know; this is a huge generalization. But it is critical for the survival of at least our little terrestrial ball that we embrace this generalization. 

There are so many people out there who talk about “original sin” – usually to blame it on womankind. Adam and Eve… the snake and the apple… but, at the heart of that story is the dichotomy between need and togetherness, separation and alienation. Here’s the thing, if we are going to look to the origins of negativity, or perhaps better understood as its challenges, we must look to “creation” itself. And while I’m couching this meditation within a tiny bit of biblical exegesis, I don’t want to lose people who reject religion. All of us are part of the same story, whatever the story is; it is all a matter of perspective, and we are all peoples of myths, whether we attend temples of some sort, follow post-Enlightenment philosophies or post-modern existential/secular ways of thinking. As I tell my kids, “All words are built on all words; this is the basis of evolution and creativity.”

And so, I present this unorthodox set of notions, on this day of days, which commemorates a terrible event in our modern history.

In the mythological creation story from Genesis, Divine Entirety suddenly felt alone. This conscious awakening could be thought of as the primary point of alienation. Alone and in the dark. “Let there be light.” What does the light do, but make a sense of isolation all the more apparent?  

What to do? Well, what to do is to do, or to make. Identify raw materials from within the sea of integrity, and separate them out from one another; dividing materials into kinds makes them easier to use. (Just think of the world as an assembly project from IKEA or a never ending LEGO construct…) Once the materials are organized, they can be combined and recombined, molded into what you want, what you need. This is the essence of the creation story in Genesis. The world was created, then seen to have some flaws, and so was reinvented. Over time and many interventions, the thing that was created (and perhaps objectified) forgot its true origin, forgot its original language, forgot its purpose, forgot that it belonged to and had individuated from a singular source.

Seen in this light, it could be said that the primary flaw in creation was/is the act of division, and that this flaw is a natural aspect of ongoing creation, and the original commission of Creative Energy. Alienated Being desires intimate togetherness, and so creates more being(s) to accommodate that desire… and yet, the product can only promote more longing that leads to more separations, more creations… more divisions and differentiations, more exposures of an insuperable design flaw.

Divisions and differentiations, “devices and desires”, these are primary motivating energies, I should say. These primary motivating energies drive all of our actions in daily life, as well as our politics. In societies, we grow within community units that during our formative years comprise the whole world to us. Maturing into “adulthood,” our sense of what the whole world is pans outward. We discover that many of our decisions are made for us, and we sometimes find ourselves at the mercy of divided waters and diverted streams not of our own making. There are many distractions and manipulations controlling everything we do.

Truth is, all people are The People. All existing or created divisions between people are false, illusory divisions; at the most basic level, we all have the same needs. I have often stated, “That there are so many of us is for only one reason, so that we can help one another.” Certainly, this is the message of the Golden Rule, in all the different ways we see it expressed throughout world history. 

On September 11, 2001, we experienced what could be called a “Great Sin of Division and Discord” in the event and aftermath of terrorist actions that resulted from a magnitude of hate, death and destruction not seen before on our shores. This day continues to be a day of mourning and remembrance for the loss of so many lives, of so much potential for good, so much purpose. This day also continues to be an open, unhealed wound, perpetuated by systems of injustice that are politically motivated in order to consolidate money and power—actually to rob people of their personal assets and agency in order to feed the greed of powerbrokers.

Healing will not come until we acknowledge civil unity to be of primary importance. In the days following September 11, 2001, there was a sense of unity, even if tinged with anger over losses and against “foreigners,” and even through a profound sadness in the knowledge that it always seems to take a tragedy (flood, hurricane, war, forced migration, and the like) to bring people together— as if we cannot achieve unification by any other means. We huddled together in our grief.

Territorialism, nationalism, tribalism, ghettoization… these are all false constructs, designed to make people think in terms of scarcity and fear, rather than in more holistic terms, such as a recognition of abundance that is able to fulfill need wherever it exists. 

I’m grateful to Rabbi Jay LeVine for his discussion, yesterday, of a famous quote of the Prophet Amos, who states that feast days and hymns of praise and blood offerings are not the sacrifices desired by the Divine Source. Instead, “Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Rabbi LeVine said of social action that we must think of ourselves as drops of water, which join in puddles and pools, and rise with the rain to flow with power and might. Likewise, there is no more powerful agency in the world than people joining to work together, to help one another. 

In short, I suggest that togetherness and inclusion are the balms to heal a broken world. Today, I hope for you and for me, for all of us, that September 11^th be remembered as a call for unity to the common goal of being for each other in goodness, truth and equity. 

Let all that who are joined toward such goals never be put asunder.

© 2018 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

So You Bought Yourself A Band…

“Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer.”      ~ Patrick Rothfuss

So, you bought yourself a band.

The “consummate businessman” gamboled himself along the garden path into a financial hole, and you were there at the fire sale, cash in hand. What a coup! How cool is that?

Oh, but things haven’t gone so great at the start, though, have they?

First, there was the pesky little detail of the guys who were already the band members; you had to get rid of them. But you couldn’t, like, write them a letter or call them on the phone or speak to them in person sometime during the three or more years in which you’ve been incubating your plan toward hatching point. You had to sue people, some of whom didn’t know anything about the sale of the band, because it was never announced! So, now you are paying a whole bunch of money for a big wheel attorney who can pummel and gag everyone into submission. That was an expense and bother you hadn’t counted on. You made a big splash in the press, though, releasing the detailed legal suit for everyone to see, attempting to smear everyone.

Ham-fisted. Ugly.

You wish that part were over. You’re just itching to get on the big stage. You’ve been practicing and practicing. You’ve now memorized one whole album of the group’s corpus material. You’ve been offering as many gigs as possible in little coffee houses and restaurants and the like, smoothing your stage patter. Your sychoph – er, pals have been telling you how great it all is, how ready you are!

Hmm. One album’s worth of songs is, like, one set. One. Set.

Then, there is this little problem: At those venues that are already booked, they are waiting for those other guys to show up. The publicity is already out; it’s been out for months. In many cases, tickets have already been sold for some of those events. I guess your premise is that it doesn’t really matter who shows up to load in, as long as there are the requisite number of guys on stage doing the songs. When were you going to tell the presenters to expect you, instead of the other guys? Didn’t think about that as being your obligation, did you? You thought your “business partner” was supposed to do that? It’s you, now, man; it’s you! You wanted it, you got it! I mean, if you want your “partner” to do that stuff, you might have to whip out that attorney again.

I guess you’ll now start thinking twice about your business “partner” and how you do business together as time goes on; there’s a good idea.

You’ve got a computer. You’ve got a phone. You’ve had a bunch of time. It’s not just about playing the instruments and singing to audiences. The way you’ve “played” your hand thus far means you’re going to have to deal with a website and bookings and presenters, airline tickets, hotel room bookings and rental cars. Or, conversely, you might have to hire a competent staff person to do that for you, if you are too busy; another expense. But these are business decisions, right? You own those, now, too, I guess. Don’t you? (Did your contract talk about that? Did it stipulate who was responsible for these things? Did an attorney ever look at the rag before you signed it?)

Symphony gigs. I guess there will never be another one of those. I mean, you don’t know anything about a symphony, do you? Never worked with a conductor, I’m thinking. And I’m guessing you don’t have the arrangements. First off, there is something called a “cue” that is not associated with the word “pool.”

Summer clinic. Gone. You’re into jamming and schmoozing and having fun, but you can’t teach and you can’t coach. That’s not what you’re interested in, anyway. You want to market and promote yourself, and sing on the big stage. Those old fans simply aren’t as important as the new ones you’re planning to pursue. (I wonder if you did a market study?)

Got rhythm? Not so much? Maybe lose the drum, then. Or hire a drummer. Oh, but that doesn’t fit the tradition, does it? Cuts into the bottom line, as well.

Technê (craft) and epistêmê ( knowledge). Epistasthai (knowing how) and gnôsis (understanding). Émpeiros (experienced; practiced) and artios (ready because prepared). These are old Greek words about art and artistry; do you see yourself in any of them, or is it just Greek to you?

You can buy the band, but you can’t wear it like a suit. You don’t put on a shirt and magically become the fantastic musician with the hot guitar licks and the honeyed voice. Your money can’t endow you with talent the likes of the people you’ve supplanted, in order to fulfill your fantasy. But, get this, talent is what the audiences in the big halls expect! That’s what they pay for! Can you deliver that? (Will a letter from your “partner” to the venues, saying you’re “great guys,” make it so?)

This business is bigger than you are – way, way bigger than you realize. All by yourself, you opened Pandora’s box, and you sent the word out there. The industry feeds on gossip, and you gave out a whole lot of innuendo for people to chew on. Your stunt with the media puts you in as much questionable light as the people you tried to smear, the very people you did out of decent jobs. You can gag some of the people, but not all of them. You’ve already disappointed and disgusted longtime fans with your actions. You can create a back-story, but what will people believe? (You never made a press release, introducing all these changes to the world. What were you thinking? What were you waiting for? What were you trying to hide?)

I wonder if others in the business will want to work with you, share a stage with you, stand next to you, after the stunt you pulled. They’ve earned their fame; you’ve merely “purchased the rights” to it. Don’t look to DNA for rights to respect; any actor’s kid knows you have to show four times the talent to get anyone to even look at you.

Okay. So, now that you “own” it, the big question is “Can you deliver?” And, boy, oh, boy, you’re going to have to answer that one sooner than you think. Are you ready to ride the rollercoaster of your own making? Whee!!!!

A lot of people, these days, speak of karma. “Karma’s a bitch,” they say.

Oh, but karma’s got nothing on Nemesis. Do you remember who Nemesis is? She is the Greek Goddess equalizer, the righter of wrongs; she is an aspect of Justice. She addresses the hubris of small humans and big gods in the most appropriate manner, by revealing the truth of what they are.

Nemesis, the cold light of truth, awaits you, in every seat, in every concert hall.

Entertain me. Make me smile.

Nemesis is waiting to see and hear what you will deliver.

© 2017

Good Neighbors: 4. Thursday

Have pity on me,

have compassion;
you are a person just like me,
so try to understand;
accept me, and I'll feel okay.

I came here to make a better life.
I share a room with five other guys,
so I can send my earnings home.

I know I don’t belong here,
I would rather be at home;
I know my presence offends you,
but you need me to do all the work
you cannot bring yourself to do.

It’s not that I look different,
not that I trip over your words;
my sin is that I am here.

You call it free country,
and then you take it back;
I work for you, and you speak against me
—you think of me as inferior.

I was born of inequality;
this is the stain you helped make,
a stain you cannot wash out
—the truth is on you.

Greet me,
and I’ll feel acknowledged;
pay me,
and I’ll feel my worth
—an honest share will bring me joy,
and I’ll forget how tired I am;
my spirit will be uplifted,
and I will call you fair.

Don’t push me out;
you need me too much,
and I need you, too
—we need one another.

If we can share this beautiful life,
if we can stand together for what is just,
the world will be a better place for everyone.

We both put our heart out there,
we both make sacrifices;
let’s build, from small kindnesses,
a world we can all share,
where everyone has a rightful place.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 51, and could be subtitled, “The Alien.”

Security State: All Deposit, What Return?

War economy gave birth to the security state and the promotion of endless fears. Terrorism without borders is the latest on the war front, very possibly aided and abetted by international cyber-crime.

Billions of US dollars have been spent annually to put our soldiers in harm’s way and weapons in the hands of foreign armies, both allies and their enemies. To some extent, United States foreign policy has done more to destabilize than to stabilize the Middle East. Our involvement there has been more about oil and money than the advertized promotion of democracy, much less human rights. By contrast, our involvement in Africa has been next to nil, never mind that human rights are being trampled all over the place and genocide is on the march. There isn’t, apparently, enough money in caring about what happens in Africa. This American disinterest in the plight of African nations has been a boon for China, which has all but moved in to mine the minerals and themselves, bringing their own workers, to the impoverishment of each local populace where they make an agreement with the local despot.

On the home front, billions of US dollars are spent annually to incarcerate people and to militarize our domestic law enforcement agencies. To some extent, United States domestic policy has done more to destabilize than to stabilize our inner cities. The law has seen fit to uphold many of the most egregious cases of police brutality. In large part, allowing civilians the opportunity to stockpile small arsenals has promoted the notion that police have the right to shoot at “suspects” in the kill zone, and ask questions only when the bodies are on the slab. Frequently, what looks like a brandished weapon is no weapon at all; sometimes it actually is a weapon, at others there is absolutely no weapon. The militarized police are claiming, and taking pride while doing so, that they are being “frightened” into what is later called “effectiveness,” and the courts are upholding that position in many, too many cases. While the police are “looking out for their own,” are they also looking out for the rest of us? Shall we bring race relations into this discussion?

Police and Fire unions are among the biggest supporters of local government officials’ election campaigns, followed closely by big development companies. Police and Fire contracts, with heath and pension benefits, take a huge chunk out of any municipal government’s general fund. Some contracts allow officers to become vested in their pension within between five to ten years of service. Some officers “retire” after they are vested. Some of these officers apply for lucrative contracts in other municipalities. Double-dippers, sometimes even triple-dippers abound in a pay and pension system that is not regulated and is completely unsustainable. You have only to look at the rising number of municipal bankruptcies to know that this is true.

Taxpayers contribute most of the money that supports the security state, but are we more secure? My thought is that we wouldn’t need to have “Security Officers” posted outside our grocery stores, if we were really secure. Too many of these jobs are just for show. How can it not be so? Most of the security officers I have seen lately weigh in at over three-hundred pounds, and are attentive mostly to their electronic media. Would such a person be able to apprehend a fleeing wrong-doer? You can’t just be dressed for the part; you actually have to be able to deliver something that recruiters, these dates, call “proven effectiveness.” The world of privatized enforcement seems to include anything in a spectrum defined at one end by the small, well-armed private army (working sometimes outside the law) to the $13/hour actor from central casting, at the other.

There have been too many high profile cases, of late, where people had been arrested, tried and convicted of crimes they did not commit. Better late than never to be exonerated, I suppose, but these costly mistakes would never have been uncovered if it had not been for the growing database of forensic DNA. Meanwhile, innocent lives have been broken and wasted, and some have died before the truth could be uncovered.

The average person’s notion of how police do their work comes from the television. From what is shown on TV, most people would think that every law enforcement agency works methodically from an extremely strict set of protocols. TV police protocols say that you cannot arrest someone and hold them in custody without strong probable cause including evidence. In my town (in real life), two people were arrested for committing a string of arsons. The two do not know one another, and one was at work at the time the fires he is accused of were set; one has jobs and family and ties to the community, the other is a transient. The evidence the police have to bind these two people over has yet to be disclosed in the courtroom, but Columbo would never arrest two people just because someone said they saw the person or because a surveillance tape showed a figure that might just look like the person someone said they saw near one of the fires, if there weren’t so much shadow. There might well be a number of people on the street, if there is a fire in the neighborhood, observing. I do not know how this particular situation will play out; only time will tell. But I find it disquieting that the police do not need evidence and probable cause to bind a person over for trial. The person can be arrested, and the police then conduct their investigation while the one arrested is taken off the street, and isolated from contact with family. I would put a question forward: Does it serve justice and does it prove “effective” to set bail nearly twice as high for the transient as for the workingman? There will be no person raising bail for the transient, so what is the purpose and what does it achieve? Meanwhile, to some extent, the men have been tried in the press: the Mayor of the town has promised to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. The Mayor is up for reelection. The Mayor’s platform is, of course, “proven effectiveness.”

Where did I get the information for this blog entry? I read the newspaper everyday. I hope you do, too.  Much of what we see is a theater, a masquerade meant to imply order, which may not exist, at all. All of the issues and stories I touch on here are related; they do not occur in one-off or in isolation. We need to ask the hard questions about the money we pay for “security.” We need to have better determinations about deadly force. We need to get guns off the streets, period. We need to vote for people who might really do something about all this, rather than shoo in the incumbent rubber-stampers, whose campaigns are paid for by security unions and big business interests. Only today, the new head of the FBI, James Comey, said in interview that cybercrime is the biggest terrorist threat to our security. An argument could be made that it is the biggest threat to world order, but no one wants to go that far. Those claims will only come when economies topple, and then it will be too late.

There is a lot of investment being made in armed security. There is not nearly the same investment being made in people and justice. Major infrastructure changes needed to insure greater electronic security are “too expensive” for big business; it is cheaper for big business to send out new credit cards and pay off insurance claims than to invest in better, more secure systems. What investments are made benefit big business and all the trappings that support big business, including “security guards.” This investment maintains a crippling status quo of economic divide, but what are the returns?

Things will not change until big business gets hurt, and hurt badly. In the event, politics will not be able to save big business, and neither will security guards. For all that we may want to change the balance power, we do not want to see what happens when the hackers bring down the firewalls.