The War on Poverty

I'm told that I grew up poor. My mother, raising my brother and I on her own, told me that we were poor a lot while I was growing up. But, frankly, I never really believed it (and neither did my late brother...we had too much faith in and love for our mother to believe that she would lead us into real poverty no matter what she said.)

I always had a roof over my head. I always had food in my belly. I always had shoes on the feet that would grow to size 12 by the time I was in high school. I always had clothes to wear to school. I always had toys under the Christmas tree and cake on my birthday. More often than not, I had money to buy comic books (granted they only cost 12 cents back in the day) and go to the movies. I may not have had access to every whim that occurred to me...but, thanks mostly to my mother's selfless efforts and seemingly boundless strength, I never, ever felt poor.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has thrown an unblinking, sobering spotlight on the poor in this unimaginably wealthy country of ours. The sight of poor people wading through the remnants of their lives in the Gulf Coast brought home to everyone what those people already knew. A lot of us have been left behind...for reasons so varied that pointing a finger at one root cause is a study in hubris that I shall not indulge in here...when comes to achieving the so-called American Dream.

(Last week my mother told me that had Katrina hit way back when we were living in New Orleans we would have probably been among those wading through the abandoned dead and the putrid muck...I don't doubt her but I wouldn't dare presume to put myself in the shoes of those who actually did suffer through that particular hell.)

Once upon a time, President Johnson enlisted the citizens of this country in a "war on poverty". It was a noble gesture but that "war"...like President Reagan's "war on drugs" and President Bush's "war on terror"...is not one that can be won with noble gestures and windy rhetoric (in my more cynical moments I reluctantly concede that none of these "wars" may come to any kind of satisfying conclusion in my lifetime...or for a good long while after that.)

I'm told that I grew up poor. I accept that without really believing it (the child in me still naive enough to believe what I believe despite any evidence to the contrary.)

I Wish

I remember the boy. He wanted to be a super-hero. He wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star. He wanted to be the most trusted lover and the best friend. He wanted to be content enough to smile most of the time and he wanted to be wealthy enough to not to have to worry about a blessed thing.

Yeah, I remember that boy.

I wish I could hug the boy...as he's flying in the backyard (towel trailing behind him as he went) or playing air guitar with the Stones (basking in the acclaim of the adoring crowds.) I wish I could hug the boy when he's crying bitter tears over silly crushes who never knew he was even alive. I wish I could hug the boy and tell him, "it's not always gonna be okay...sometime it'll be so wonderful you won't believe it could be true...and sometimes it'll be so painful that you won't believe you can survive it... but you'll get through it."

I wish I could tell him, "your Mama loves you sure...but your brother loves you, too...and yeah even your Daddy loves you the best way he knows how...and you'll get through it."

"People will break your heart...and you'll foolishly break your own heart...you'll be the hero and the bastard...the lover and the confidant...and you'll get through it."

I wish I could hug the boy...make him learn to savor all of the laughter and all of the tears...all of the dreams and all of the realities; make him see that, in one way or another, he's going to be a super-hero...and a rock star...and a lover and a friend...a fool, a mirror, a dreamer, a slave and a freedman, a light in somebody's eye and a knife in someone's heart...a boy and a man utterly ordinary and utterly unique at once.

I wish I could reach back across the years and hug the boy..."you'll get through it"...I wish...

We Rise (refrain for September 11th)

From the smoldering rubble, we rise,

From the well of bitter tears, we rise,

From the night that seemed without end,

From the day blackened with blood and fire,

We rise…

We give thanks for the light,

prayers for the souls gone abruptly to God;

We give thanks for the magic and majesty

that shines even in the face of madness.

From the storied cities, we rise,

From the bountiful fields, we rise,

From the crucible of peace and justice,

From the land of the free and the freedmen,

We rise…

Thanks

Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a message on Delurking Day, I really appreciate it.

I just came away from the American Red Cross site after the making the promised donation for every comment (plus a bit more for each of my fellow other Delurking Day participants and a bit more to make it a round number :-) It was much easier to get onto the site than it was a few days back...I hope that is more indicative of increased capacity (or, more likely, the fact that so many have already given) than of anything else.

Special thanks to Ella (yay you! :-) and all of the others who participated in the event.

there's a blood red circle
on the cold dark ground
and the rain is falling down
the church door's thrown open
I can hear the organ's song
but the congregation's gone...
my city of ruins...my city of ruins...

now the sweet bells of mercy
drift through the evening trees
young men on the corner like scattered leaves
the boarded up windows
the empty streets
while my brother's down on his knees...
my city of ruins...my city of ruins...

now with these hands, with these hands,
I pray Lord...
I pray for the strength, Lord...
I pray for the faith, Lord...
I pray for your love, Lord...
I pray for the strength, Lord...

come on, rise up! come on, rise up!
come on, rise UP...

"My City of Ruins"
words and music by Bruce Springsteen
(c) 2002 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

Delurk for Hurricane Relief

The amount of relief needed to help the people on the Gulf Coast survive in the short term and return to some semblance of normalcy in the long term is going to be staggering. Ella of the delightful blog Occasionally Glamourous of a Misused Youth has organized a blog community fund raiser and even though I've already made a contribution to the relief effort, I accepted the invitation to participate.

In a nutshell, for every unique comment left here on "Delurking Day"...Saturday September 3, 2005...I will donate $1.00 to the American Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief fund.

Say "hi"...send a prayer or a wish to the victims of the hurricane and its aftermath...read the "New Orleans" post just below this one (or any others here)...just make yourself known. It'll only take a couple of minutes. It's a small thing, of course, but every little bit can quickly add up as the blog community reaches out to one of the other communities that we all belong to (and anything that keeps attention focused on the crisis is, to my mind, all good.)

Namaste.

The Official De Lurking Day Participant List

Ella M. at The Occasionally Glamourous Results Of A Misused Youth
Kay-Dee at The Life Of A Dreamer
Jon at metempsychosis rhetoric
Woodstock at Thoughts That Come Unbidden Department
Jim Carson
J. at Tastes Like Burning
Barbara