Revolution

You think you are safely rooted in
corporate greed,
the thin veneer of class-conscious complacency,
in technological innovation;
sadly, all technology is primitive
when compared with what mind,
in cooperation with heart,
can envision and accomplish

—you have not been set free
by your mastery of machines,
but are instead enslaved
to a system that
neither honors the dignity of life,
nor is concerned with its preservation,
and that believes culture to be a waste of time.

But, verily I say,
you will be taken unawares,
you will be overpowered;
you have no choice:
this is war.

Surrender is the only option;
your thoughts will no longer be your own

—your blood and your being shall belong to another;

pinch your mean pennies, I dare you!
—this beast cannot be starved.

You will slowly be deprived
of indifference and hate,
of the necessity for isolated thought;
you will be grafted to the tree of integrity
whether you like it or not

—this is a matter of life and death,
and love.

When money is short,
it gets even worse, this conflict;
you blithely think,
I don’t need that,
and you hold back.

The operatives in this war defy gravity and the law;
they are guerrillas and thugs,
and they run the oldest black market in the world;
they are embedded everywhere,
these merciless mercenaries,
these freelancing villains,
and you cannot out-think them

—this is a syndicate with no bosses.

They assault you with color,
or cunning, dance-like motions;
they draw you when you are vulnerable,
or they tattoo your flesh;
they yammer sublime verse at you
or they capture you in clay;
they snap images of you and, worse, nature
or make a harmonic racket to compete
with your own noises
—at any rate (and all),
they substitute your emotions
for theirs,
wearing you down,
day after day,
until you turn to their side
—the side of beauty and light—
and then it is all over,
and they have won.

Damn these fiends called Artists!

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

More and more, we are seeing that economic slowdown called “The Great Recession” have a negative impact on the arts. When churches decide to layoff their musicians and opera companies and symphony associations lock out their unionized musicians, it can only mean that tomorrow the lights will be dimming on Broadway. And from there, it trickles down to all the small arts organizations who are on the bubble of making it for one more year or folding. I know of a number of such organizations.

People think, oh, I don’t need to support art—someone else will. This is the big lie. It is the biggest lie ever perpetrated. Culture is the work of the people, and if the people won’t support it the way it should be supported, art and artists will inveigle their way to, if not a livelihood, at least the satisfaction of invading your life with their art.

History shows us the palpable work of artists. We can see and sometimes even touch or hear what the artist left behind. Culture and history have passed through artists’ hands, not the hands of the patrons whose image and ego demanded excess—their involvement is frequently distanced from the passion of the actual work. We can read about the patrons and appreciate that they invested, but it is the art that we can know and have a relationship with. Which is more important, of more value? I think you know the answer to that. It is a marvel that vast amounts of money have been spent, in all times and places on the earth, to produce art, but the art produced is more marvelous still.

Ultimately, this has been true forever. 

Jesus: Capitalist or Humanist?

I have to confess that I struggle mightily with the notions of conservatives, and particularly conservatives who identify themselves as Christians, who talk about having money, but not about using money for public good—who, in fact, will fight to keep themselves from having to pay taxes and also to keep public money from going into programs that help people.

I have heard many homiletic distortions on the subject of Jesus and money… I have heard and read rants in the media, from people I would have to consider irrational and even insane, on the topic of money. After hearing modern money-mongers and religious zealots on the topic of money, I must say that I continually come to the same conclusion: Jesus is not a Suze Ormon type of financial guru! And, also, that many of the rich who claim to be faithful to a supreme deity are deluded hypocrites. Is it really a person's God given right to accumulate wealth? Gosh, I haven't read any passages in scripture that assert that.

When Jesus speaks of the widow’s two mites, he really is saying that her offering was the greatest simply because it was all she had to give and she gave it all. In another story, the rich man Jesus “sent empty away” (and sorrowfully he sent the man away) precisely because he was not at all willing to give all he had to give, which was much, and could have been really helpful to many in need. 

Jesus seemed always to encourage an unencumbered life, one without anything more than one needs.  Jesus told the disciples not to have stuff, and only to take what was needed where it was offered freely. I read an article a few years ago about a tent city in Washington; one of the people interviewed said that if Jesus were alive, he would be living there, not in a suburban home, much less a luxury penthouse.

With regard to giving, the passage where Jesus speaks of the rendering of what is Ceasar’s unto Ceasar, what is God’s unto God, is an interesting passage for this reason: Jesus is pointing out that God does not make money and there is no money that has God’s image on it. Jesus is not at all telling people to tithe, he is telling us that God does not ask for or need money! (Have you ever heard that preached? I sure haven’t.) The implication that seems more proper is this: if God wants something from us, then what God wants is something more along the lines of giving of ourselves, with mind, body, spirit, where what we are or what we have is something needed to keep creation moving forward in a healthy way, to benefit people and planet. We pay tribute to God by in the most consistent and holistic way by giving of ourselves when what we have is needed elsewhere in God’s Garden, even if all that is needed is a smile.

Matt 6:19-21 “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” is completely consistent with this notion of rendering.

The miracle of the five loaves and two fish, found in all the gospel texts, could be understood as a story about sharing, akin to the old Stone Soup story. The disciples have two fish and five loaves, but who is to say that more food isn’t being hoarded among the crowd? The miracle might be less one of five loaves and two fish being divided among 5,000 people and more that the crowd understood that it could and should bring forth what food there was among them, for the common good.

When we tithe to our religious communities and when we pay our taxes, we must invest in the notion that keeping the organization running serves that requirement of giving of ourselves, a giving that is not just for us and our own benefit, but for the community at large, where our organized existence might serve to meet the needs of those who have less, or have nothing at all.

That is to say, we must invest our treasure and our hearts in God where God is and is needed most, which is, of course, everywhere. Those wealthy and apparently religious individuals who claim otherwise are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and sinners.

Thank you, Warren Buffett, for being real and for pointing out the obvious:  People with extreme wealth can afford to contribute more in taxes—and should. 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=buffett%20and%20taxes&st=cse