"Woe to you who are rich"

 

“Woe to you who are rich,” said Christ with no reservations or explanations. He did not say this so that others might multiply in his name reservations and explanations until we are given to understand that he meant the opposite.

     There exist among us, as you know, castes of thieves, the Grounds. “Castes” is not the right word, for they are only tribes of poor pariahs. However, they look upon robbery as their function in society and even have their own code of honor and sacred books! Foreigners who make a study of the peoples of India are astonished at so monstrous a custom. They are right, but let them also look at home and the world over. They will see that there is a caste of thieves everywhere and, horror of horrors, it is even the first and the most honored. It is the caste of the rich and mighty.

     The rich man will never set his hand to the plough. Not that he is afraid of hard work (he will work willingly enough at hunting and on the golf course), but because the code of honor of his caste forbids it.

     What is the function of the rich man in society? To interfere with those who go to work, wait for them at the turn of the road and hold them up for ransom.

     With the loot they amass they can give themselves up to play, or else to business and intrigue, or win fame, or wallow in debauchery, according to their tastes and opportunities.

     As for the worker, he works both for himself and for those who do nothing, and the less these do the more important they take themselves to be and the greater their weight.

                                                                      --Mahatma Gandhi, quoted by Lanza del Vasto in Gandhi to Vinoba

Tomorrow . . .

Tomorrow, a leader who is open about his authoritarian and fascist tendencies assumes power in this country. Even though there is much to criticize in the democrats and plenty of reasons not to want to vote for most of their candidates, the choice of a leader who has no respect for the rule of law is the worst decision voters could have made. And why did they make that choice? One word: inflation. Instead of blaming the billionaires who are actually responsible for inflation (as labor leader Humberto Selix used to say: “Inflation is rich people inflating their pockets with poor peoples’ wages”), voters elected a billionaire who is beholden to his billionaire cronies. America has truly sold its birthright for a bowl of soup! A bowl of soup that is only going to get more out of reach. Hopefully, future buyer’s remorse will be enough to wake people up to the terrible choice that they have made. But will it be too late? And will it be enough to drive people to call for change in a system that has been making America more and more unequal, and life harder for the poor and middle class for a whole generation?

The Poetry of Novalis

Einst da ich bittre Tränen vergoß, da in Schmerz aufgelöst meine Hoffnung zerrann, und ich einsam stand am dürren Hügel, der in engen, dunkeln Raum die Gestalt meines Lebens barg – einsam, wie noch kein Einsamer war, von unsäglicher Angst getrieben – kraftlos, nur ein Gedanken des Elends noch. – Wie ich da nach Hülfe umherschaute, vorwärts nicht konnte und rückwärts nicht, und am fliehenden, verlöschten Leben mit unendlicher Sehnsucht hing: – da kam aus blauen Fernen – von den Höhen meiner alten Seligkeit ein Dämmerungsschauer – und mit einem Male riß das Band der Geburt – des Lichtes Fessel.

                                                                               --Novalis, Hymnen an die Nacht, 3

Once when I shed bitter tears, when my hope dissolved in pain and I stood alone on the barren hill that concealed the shape of my life in a narrow, dark space—as alone as no lonely person had ever been, driven by unspeakable fear—powerless, only an idea of misery. As I looked around for help, unable to go forward or back, and clinging with endless longing to the fleeing, extinguished life; there came from the blue distance—from the heights of my old bliss—a twilight shiver, and suddenly the bond of birth—the fetters of light—were broken.

Novalis, in his prose writing, especially his fragments, is an explorer: observing, pondering, developing half-formed, tentative ideas. His prose work is insightful but contingent.

     But in his poetry, he is a prophet: intuitive, confident, wise. His fragments are speculative, but his poetry (which sometimes, as with the above fragment, takes the form of what is commonly called “prose poetry”) is consummate, imperative, visionary, sure.