by Richard Kovac
An inspirational book or sermon by a middle class author or homilist is a contradiction in terms. None of the fat cats can teach us anything except how to claw (or purr) our way into their own kind of power and affluence. I know this is a radical critique of the status quo in "religion" in this country, and may hurt feelings.
Nevertheless.
Real teaching comes from the skinny cat, who has had to go a couple of days without a meal.
Beware of those who strive to baptize you into the middle class and sprinkle you with money. The divine investment plan is no mutual fund, but it is marketed as such in some quarters...
Yet poverty is not sufficient in itself, as the notorious Max Nix hinted when he said, "Poverty is nice when you have some money". At minimum there should be a basic, clean simplicity.
Middle class truth is non-existent. It ignores everything important. It deals with the form of things, rather than their content. That is a definition of "superficial".
You may say, "The lower classes are incoherent and have to be guided". That was the premise behind the communist party elite. But I am not advocating class struggle, guided or otherwise. I'm calling for what the church has called "preferential option for the poor". If there were class struggle, the followers of Spartacus would again be crucified in thousands along the Appian Way because the middle class runs the armies and has weapons of mass destruction at its disposal.
We might well say to each other, in this treadmill of futile desires which define our estate as the bourgeoisie, not "Live long and prosper!" (as in Star Trek), but rather "Row long and live!" (my wife's revision). For we the middle class are the real slaves on this galley ship of unruly appetites.
It will continue to be a miasma.
That's easy predicting.
Another salute, taking off this time on "Star Wars", to those who desire full bellies in the midst of global suffering on a massive scale, "may the farce be with you!"
(Someday I hope to say something positive.)
But I am asking for something - consciousness and reform.