Dreaming the World

A seasonably warm day, pleasant enough that Nori spent twenty minutes on the porch. Here and there a few leaves cling to trees. From my window I can see determined reds among the scant dangling browns and tans.

There are fewer berries on what’s left of the Poke Berry, just enough to entice the birds to visit for a few minutes on occasion. A couple of days ago a flock of diverse sparrows and robins dropped by to feed. I struggle to identify sparrows even in breeding season, so now I just notice differences in size and identify most of them as little brown birds.

Last evening there was a herd of five deer grazing happily in the field. They appeared to be mostly young does. As the light faded, they made their way very slowly to the sheltering woods, stopping frequently to nibble the grass.

This morning I glanced at my news feed which was overflowing with the misinformation, greed, misogyny, and racism that has come to be the hallmark of the present administration. It seems they are determined to hoard, erase, steal, and plunder until there is nothing left to destroy.

I found myself thinking about Jesus’ statement that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I know a goodly number of wealthy people who are menches. Inevitably they feel blessed to have been given wealth, and take pleasure in sharing their resources with the community.

The problem arises when a person hoards, terrified they will loose their wealth, and driven to accumulate ever more money and influence at the expense of others. Its a sort of illness, a psychosis of the mind and spirit, and from that place people do enormous harm. Most often, they are unable to see the impacts of their actions or to hear the concerns and advice of those who have compassion and wisdom. No wonder Jesus admonished us to be careful of the way wealth may work on us.

Our present woes are unfurling against a historical background of genocide, slavery, and land theft. What the powers that be want is a return to a time when greed, brutality, and theft were the norm. It was a time when the ultrawealthy could count their dollars on the way to church, when genocide and land theft were often considered civic virtues, and when slaves were investments.