Let's blame it all on Ann Landers
.. . I don't know about you, but I'm going to blame it all on Ann Landers. For years and years I have done all right, more or less making ends meet, enjoying some good times and trying to stoically accept the bad. As far as injustice and oppression and world hunger, well, there are some things nobody can do much about but donate some of the money you had earmarked for a new set of tires or a television set for the kids' room and hope you can keep putting food on the table.
. . Then somebody has the nerve to tell me about this new organization called Shelter And Feed Everybody. All we have to do, I'm told, is convince everybody that there are spiritual laws emanating from the eternal spirit of absolute love that some call God, some call Allah, some call by other names, and these laws dictate that we not only love all our have-not neighbors in the world but that we give food and shelter and truth to them as well.
. . The difficult part, this guy says, is that most of the world's societies, especially America's, tend to preclude spiritual truths from institutional ideals and the more technical the society in terms of institutional goals the more adherence to the letter of law as opposed to the spirit. The result of this is personal fragmentation, a moral code which worships the institutions, and a culture which rewards personal ego and its attendant drives like ambition, self- (and institution-)directed work, and the accumulation of society's "goods" (i.e., money, houses, cars, trust funds, securities) with the status and prestige and position such things bring in the society.
. . An inevitable byproduct of the system, I am told, is that individuals attach the values and goals of society to their personal egos (even without much measure of success within the system) and the accumulated passing along of these ideals through the generations results in a great wall of tradition, built of massive stones of hardened hearts and minds secured with a mortar of selfishness and fear. In many places the wall needs a great shock to be brought down. An oversimplification to be sure but consider the continuing race to get "my share", with its narrow rationalization that it is done for the sake of the family, the children, and then consider the family of man, the children of the world. And recognize that the plight of the have-nots might parallel the plight of modern man. In June of 2001 the internet reported that eight-hundred million people go to bed hungry every night, and half of them are children. These people go to bed so hungry every night that twenty-four thousand of them die of hunger every day. But that ain't the bad news. No, the bad news is that in June of 2011 Time reported that more than nine-hundred twenty-five million people are malnourished. Right now. The statistic for deaths every day due to slow starvation is not available.
. . So anyway this guy tells me we don't even have to give up the things we've got (though the personal and family fortunes tied up in the traditional quest for financial security would make it much easier, and might even be necessary to a degree), we just have to give up the accumulation of more, and that only temporarily, to witness the world being fed and sheltered and made presentable for the inevitable day of judgment. And I say to myself again, in the time-honored American way, that there's no way it will work, that I can just eat everything on my plate in honor of the memory of those people who might be dying of starvation during this meal, lift up my glass to the will of God regarding those who are hungry and thirsty and with no place to lay their head, and know that I will try to forget this on the earliest possible tomorrow. ("And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the dusty way to death" [or something] Shakespeare wrote.)
. . Could we have agreed to lower our perceptions to the lowest possible form, the dullest, the most common, and to take the easiest way out? Yes. Ordinary mind is the enemy. Common sense can be the enemy. "To some extent," Ann continued, "common sense means accepting that there are some problems for which there is no solution." Here's the real problem: humanity is running out of time. Food prices increased world-wide fifty percent in 2010, no small reason for the huge increase in hungry people over the past decade. More pertinent perhaps is the apparent reality of sudden climate change, global warming due to the power of ordinary mind, discounting the earth itself as a collateral damage in the war for personal security, to say nothing of the huge increase in major earthquakes in recent years. Yeah, there's a problem, there are how many tens of thousands of people dying of starvation this day, this 1st day of February 2012?
. . Then Ann Landers, in a thirtieth anniversary interview, comes up with a definition of common sense. It is, she said, "an ability to view a situation in its uncomplicated form and to respond in an uncomplicated way."
. . We know there's plenty of food around, it's just that some places don't have enough, and some people don't have money or credit or stuff enough to get it when it is there. Not complicated at all. And talk about an easy, uncomplicated solution: just get the food to hungry people and let them have it.
. . Focus all our resources on getting food staples to everybody, and those who can provide their own bread say, don't show up at distribution centers. (January of 2012 reportedly saw almost one billion people malnourished. i think that means you go to bed hungry every night.) We need big distribution centers.
. . Now we see that we can indeed feed and shelter everybody, just by agreeing that we can and then doing it. Here common sense is the enemy; for humankind to develop a common language of love in a common cause of feeding the have-nots of this world is almost beyond my ability to imagine. But it's not just that we can feed everybody, it's that we must, if only because of common sense. It's better safe than sorry. I see all that. And I see more___that perhaps in this fashion we lay the groundwork to provide a solution to the problem of suffering and death which afflicts every living being. Perhaps if we merely love everyone on earth (admittedly for some this will be quite an inner task) and work to ensure that everyone first has the necessities of life, then everyone can be educated in, can come to believe in the realities of our situation (as elucidated by me of course). And most of us know, from personal experience, that the least we can expect in return, from most people, is a desire for more than the necessities and, upon viewing the realities, a willingness to work to get more. And even if the desire should prove to be the attaining of personal salvation through the methods and practices of some of our Eastern neighbors I for one would be glad to help contribute the basic necessities of life as a small contribution to their salvation and mine.
. . So, with regrets, I'm planning to write my congresspeople and ask that they enact an ad hoc law of subsistence, and tell them that I volunteer to be in the vanguard of renouncing the treasures of the world and even more food than I need, I'll say twenty-five dollars every two weeks when food stamps allows twenty dollars a week and I'm talkin' food, clothing, gas, entertainment, simplifying my life as much as possible, so that all the world might be saved. (i wasn't getting food stamps or any form of government assistance, never had at that point; just knew a bit about it. and i couldn't buy a job__i was living [frugally for four years] off the $8,000 i got from the sale of el family home)
. . I know now that it could be that the ends I've been making meet are the ends of the rope around my neck. And I guess it's better SAFE than sorry. What about you? Come on, commit to not merely being obedient to God's perfect will for the world by giving to organizations committed to ending poverty, but be obedient to the spirit of God's will by telling all of this to your (hopefully richer than you [Woe to you rich people huh?( Luke 6:24But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. 25Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. 26Woe unto you, when [most] men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.) Woe to you on friendly terms with the world (unless you're me and doing your part by doing this web site(hehehe)James 4:4Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. 5Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to [ill will]? 6But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. 9Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.]) neighbor.
very important picture <smile>:
here's a slightly twisted view of the front porch at the trailer I lived at in the early '80s (when I wrote this [now-updated, edited document]):
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