In America it has been about the richer getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The congress for so long refusing wage increases for the poor while it voted itself multiple pay raises. Corporate contractors pushing for war as they run for the mothers milk of windfall profits in Iraq despite the potential for catasptrophic consequences for so many. War profiteering eagerly encouraged by an extremist pro-business administration with little concern for the consequences to others so prophetic of the way it would handle it's own poor people in it's own New Orleans....And why? Because of what we have allowed ourselves to become since the dream died with a younger brother.
Today it has become all about the unbridled freedom to make as much money as you want despite the consequences to others. It's all about the dog eat dog everyman for himself directive of American society. The glorified right to ignore the plight of others. The glorification of money making and extreme individualism all of which is found no where in the gospel but is the centerpiece of life which so many in America partake of. "Love your neighbor as yourself" and ,you are your brothers keeper, have become starved, decimated and controlled ideas which are not given their proper place in American society as centerpiece examples of life as it should be, but are replaced with the rule that a man who is down must be stepped on and one at a disadvantage must be exploited . Love for others does not correctly manifest itself in policy because it would threaten the freedom to the glorified right to ignore the plight of others in the pursuit of money. In many countries love for others does manifest itself in health care for all and safety nets for the disadvantaged but interestingly these countries do not make the pursuit of money their God. The plight of others is seen as the noble responsiblity for all. People are in life together and one for one another. But in America, maximum economic function and maximum profit for oneself are king. Before the 80's America was not so lost but through and since the 80's we have emphatically put money over people. We will reap what we sow. Putting money first like doing drugs is a profit high in the early stage but eventually will catch up with us. Those we forget will not be forgotten by God. They all had reasons for living and they all had dreams, dreams like our brother Bobby Kennedy.
So much seemed to be lost that May 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. With John F. Kennedy's assassination still weighing on us and Martin Luther King assassinated only two months before it seemed hopelessness was everywhere, the spirit and backbone of the dream so very broken at last. Soon a desperate disillusioned young refugee camp would assemble at Woodstock with no leader in sight. I cannot help think that with Bobby Kennedy's assassination man robbed himself of a much brighter future yet kindled in that tragic aftermath was the new found interest in a leader that lived 2000 years ago and a realization that for some things so very opposed by powerfulmen God must be sought and that a life truly lived for God is so much better than selfishness's primary need for money. That flame is still flickering yet so let us pray as Bobby would have prayed that only our past has been lost taking heart in remembering that a dream like the principle it stands on also is not forgotten by God and that a leader, Son to that living God lives on, waiting. A Dream of dreams for now, should we tarry, but then... Reality of Realities.
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