Christmas 2017 Day 3

Howard Thurman:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back in their fields,

the work of Christmas begins,

to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

I love this poem, even though I don't know its name. It echoes what I wrote on Christmas. Healing the broken, finding the lost, feeding the hungry, releasing the prisoner - these are all beautiful actions we are called as Christians to perform throughout the year. So, what's the problem with charity? Doesn't charity accomplish these things? It does, and we should absolutely give to charities doing these things as well as doing them ourselves.

The problem with charity is that it maintains the status quo. It's important to feed and shelter people. Yet, if we're not looking honestly at the conditions that led to people needing food and shelter, we're putting a tiny band-aid on a huge problem. That problem is our societal attitude toward the "Other." Especially prevalent, (subconsciously or otherwise) are the racism, classism, sexism of our society, our life together. We value men more than women, white people more than people of colors, rich people more than poor people. We value healthy people over people with disabilities or chronic illness, we value straight people more than LGBTQ people, we value "native born" Americans more than immigrants, regardless of how long our own families have been here. We value power more than community.

These are all encoded in our laws, such as the recent tax bill, and in how our laws are enforced. They are encoded in our discussions about gun control, police brutality, birth control, abortion, terrorism, healthcare, Medi-Care, Social Security, education and more. It's encoded in the money we put into our military, education, roads, streets, bridges, libraries. Peter and I just got our tax bill. It seemed high until we realized that is pays for schools, city government, county government, the Cleveland Public Library (a 5-star library), and the Metropark system. Those are all things we use - even the schools, because although we won't use them, they are there to educate the next generation as they were there for us. These taxes are our share of upkeep and maintenance of these services, which would all be prohibitively expensive if we had to pay for them ourselves. That's the point, we all pay, we all get to use. And Peter and I use more than our share.

So, let's look at the tax bill that just passed. It gives temporary, small benefits to middle- and working-class people while giving deep and permanent cuts to rich people and corporations. Since no Democrats voted for this bill (and opposed it vociferously), what it tells us is that Republicans don't care about anyone who is not rich or a corporation. Is that the society we want to live in? A society in which people who are not rich will not be able to get ahead. (Many in America already live in that society and it will be worse with this bill.)

Giving to charity without also working to change our values and putting money in things that will enhance rather than destroy our life together, will only perpetuate the injustices inherent in our society, out life together. "to rebuild the nations, to bring peace to the people, to make music in our hearts." These things are as important as charity, maybe even more so. I'll go into that tomorrow.