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What's Happening?
What is happening to our society? No one wants to work anymore. Did coronavirus’s vacation throw at them the possibility that they don’t have to work? Are they all hoping TikTok or whatever it is will offer them fame and fortune if they come up with something unique, funky, or even embarrassing, but so much so that everyone laughs and wants more and more and more of you and your click that makes people laugh?
 What is happening to the 9-5 or all-night work shifts where people are responsible for making things, cars, air conditions, tables, beds, basketball shoes, cereals, jewelry, houses, or publish books and create toys or barbecue pits or fabulous art, things that require hard work and labor and regularity and somehow the doer can bring home the “dough” to feed the family?
Or maybe we are at the end of family? Maybe greed is invading families, and no one wants to have a child that they must worry about or support for at least 18 years. Just because there was a help check at the peak of coronavirus, now people don’t want to work in a restaurant, or on a ship or check out people at Kroger or Whole Foods or even Walgreens. They pay well, but what is it that makes people pass up these opportunities? Everyone has to start somewhere. You cannot just walk into the presidency or owner’s office and take over or expect a high position if you haven’t qualified for it. And to qualify, you often must start at the bottom and spend years learning and doing until one could take on a bigger responsibility.
What happen to our military? Are young men and women still standing up and getting trained to protect our country - or maybe they don’t want to protect our country - maybe they think it’s all a sham. They are often at the bottom of the ladder and not respected as they should be for giving their lives to do the orders from our government, dangerous and deadly as it can be. Maybe they don’t realize how many millions have given their lives to keep this land free from communism or any other lifestyle other than freedom, democracy, and good health care, and yet there are veterans who live on the streets, forgotten, mentally ill, homeless, no one wants them anymore. That is atrocious.
In our deep south, It seems more and more are going to church when churches open wide their doors. The choirs are powerful as they once again can lift their voices to pour beautiful sounds in our ears. I expect that those same sounds come from angels who will greet us in the heavenly kingdom. Maybe for some choirs or choral groups there are steppingstones to a future, maybe to enter a competition that might bring the holy voice millions of dollars. And I wonder why our youth, who declare that they have been to church, some sang in the choir, and their parents are faithful to the church, yet, what turns that 15-year-old into being so off kilter that he will kill his enemies in a school room, or on a street without even thinking twice about what he or she is doing. My heart breaks each time a kid kills.
Then there is the problem of good jobs vs bad jobs which erases the possibility of happiness when the parents and the siblings must worry about from where the next dollar will come. Imagine earning only $15 per hour or $120 per week, less than $500 a month. How can a family survive when they have a household of children to feed? Ironically, those persons who get the excess of income are those sitting in the office using the brain but not their physical activity to work. To be a physical worker is almost like being low man on the totem pole. The Mexicans - who will work anywhere doing anything because they need to feed their families back in Mexico - are desperate and will work doing any kind of tedious jobs that even most poor Americans would never take. There is little or no benefits, yet they earn enough to wire the majority of it to their families depending on those fathers and sons. A lot has to do with where one lives: New York is expensive, Memphis is cheap. Uruguay, where I live most of the time, a gallon of gas, at this hour, is $9 a gallon. Wherever you live - a job needs to be able to finance a home, have good food on the table, and plenty of clothing and mechanicals like TVs and cars and things required. If that is not the norm in a family, someone has to rob, steal and find a way to take care of them so they don’t starve.
How does this happen? Something is wrong with the American Way, I think. It’s not just the United States; the discrepancy is world-wide, and the poor are extremely poor, while the rich are extremely rich. Power counts. And now that everyone is free to have guns, without licenses or background reports, just about anyone can have a weapon and tote it around in their car or in their pants pocket or fancy purse - and if something doesn’t go their way, they pull out the weapon and shoot the enemy, not caring that it is another human just like they are, and haven’t necessarily done anything to agitate the guy with the gun. This is happening in our schools. Kids killing kids. If one isn’t popular, one becomes powerful by grabbing a gun, hiding it on his body, and pulling it out when he sees sufficient number of the “enemy” to warrant shooting them all down, like an old Western movie or a modern cartel history. And another frightening trend is youth in often stolen cars, or their own, who get a joy ride aiming at nothing, but getting their power and anger out by shooting at those driving on the freeways at innocents not knowingly about to become victims. And the whirlies and zooms of those noisy cars racing and interrupting travel on wide streets are probably the most dangerous of all. It has happened here in Memphis as well as, I gather, most cities. It is about having control and scaring people.
We need to take a deep breath and face the fact that there is little control of our youth, and particularly those who are in powerful gangs and/or have no other options because they too must be somebody and have some respect for themselves as they become adults. Too many don’t even know what love is. Too many don’t have parents who give a darn. Too many have no other options and don’t trust anyone, especially the police force. Many of these kids spent a period of their lives in foster-care which has been one of the most corrupt and sad alternatives to being removed from their violent and poor homes. We need good parents willing to take on a youth in foster-care and give them a chance to know themselves, to love someone, and to have a future. Screening those potential parents is primary, so there cannot be another mistake in the child’s life. It is the only hope left for the many kids in trouble. And maybe they will learn about God’s love and that they deserve a future, a chance to be somebody.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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