AMERICAN LANDFILL KINGS - TRUMP, SAM PHILLIPS & JESUS
15/10/2018
On the day that the President is reported to be saying stupid things about Global warming I was immediately drawn back to this song from Sam Phillips wonderful new record World On Sticks.
American Landfill Kings couldn't be a better antidote to Trump's dangerous rhetoric. It not only keeps the warning in front of us all:
Where will we live?
When they've conquered the earth
And the wild dies
Where will we live?
Phillips goes further. She hits the apocalyptic nail right on its explosive head.
How did we find ourselves
Living on top of the things
That we don't want any more
and
We die with a palace of junk
That can't find its rest in the ground
This whole scam is about wealth. It is all about the accumulation of money and stuff. We are possessed by our possessions. We worship at the altar of profit. The god of the age is money. It is the devil in respectable disguise.
Of course Jesus was all over this lie that has cataclysmic consequences 2000 years ago. Some of the Bible is not only as up to date as it was when it was written. Some of it is more up to date now. Jesus' followers were not rich. Their temptation to worship such a good was limited. Living now, in America, in the richest generation in history and Jesus' words about money are sharper than any proverbial two edged sword.
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."
Trump is about money and wealth. He throws the accusation that those who believe in global warming are being political, as if he is not being political in his blind convenience. He is prepared to get America richer as he throws away the soul of America and leaves his children and their children with an environmental catastrophe to live through. It is about momentary me, me, me at the cost of the next generations and eternity.
So, convenient blindness. Like the evangelicals throughout most of the twentieth century who dismissed Walter Rauschenbusch's social gospel because it was too cross carrying to listen to its Biblical prophetic rage. Or the conservative Protestants of Northern Ireland who dismiss "love your enemy" or "blessed by the peacemaker" because of it would to cross carrying to reconcile with their Catholic neighbour. Trump has blind convenience.
In Trump's blind convenience, America sbow to the god of money. America needs to dismiss global warming so as it can get out of any Environmental deals that would hold up rampant and unfettered capitalism. They can then up the profits, increase the wealth, live in more comfort. Like a snake in the grass they are deceived for what looks and tastes good and damned to their fate and by extension our fate too and the vulnerable poor across our world who will be first hit by the impact of climate change.
Amos warns the American Landfill Kings poetically and fearfully about what happens when they leave others vulnerable to acquire their own wealth:
"Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
you will not drink their wine.
12 For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins."
Maybe Sam Phillips gives us a way out. It is a good paraphrase of Jesus words about seeking God's kingdom before the stuff and actually about giving up the stuff if we want to inherit the kingdom of God.
Giving, letting go
Unpossessing to unbind us
Open hands, open hearts
Every moment to remind us
Let it be!
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