Something Is Wrong Here

 I like to watch the birds at my feeders. It's kind of discouraging sometimes, though, to see how they fight over the food. Naturalists would call it "Survival of the fittest." But I see selfishness, especially when two hummingbirds fight over four flower-shaped spigots. Why can't they share?

I guess it's part of our fallen world. Humans do it, too. We want to hoard our possessions, build fences around our property to keep others from having a share. Some have way more than they need, and others have too little. Republicans bristle at the concept of equal distribution of wealth. But it's just plain old selfishness--like little children refusing to share. I know I'm guilty, too. I don't give to charities as much as I should. I have more "stuff" than I need.

America is full of this greed and selfishness. We consume many more times than our share of the earth's resources. And now the little bits that were set aside for the future early in the Twentieth Century--our public lands, national forests, and national parks--are being greedily eyed by the rich industrialists and entrepreneurs to develop--as if they haven't abused and raped enough of the land already.

Some even want to build a "fence" around our whole country to keep the "undesirables" out--the people they don't want to share with or help. Sure, we let some immigrants in, in the past. In fact, unless we're Indigenous People/First Nations, all of us are immigrants.  And look at how we treated those First Nations, plus the poor immigrants who came after the first settlers in this country. Unfortunately, many of the people who fled to America in the 1800s were paid sub-low wages and forced to work in sweatshops and undesirable, dangerous jobs--only allowed the "left overs". A few have risen to the top, and even fewer of those have turned back to help those below them. Instead of building decent housing for those less fortunate, the successful ones build second, third, etc. mansions for themselves. 

The worst part in this century is that many "Christians"--the groups that used to lead the charities, have turned to building their own "empires" instead--bigger and fancier church buildings, for instance. The leading voices who should be advocating for the poor, outcast, "undesirables", are the very ones speaking out against them and supporting the agendas of the rich, who want to turn our country into their private playground and estate--locking the rest of the world out.

Have they completely forgotten that Jesus had "No place to lay his head"? He was homeless! Besides that, he went out of his way to help those undesirables and outcasts. The only people he criticized were the rich religious establishment. I fear that there are way too many people these days who call themselves Christians but are not following the example and teachings of Jesus.

Tune in to my next blog for more on this subject.