Thank you, Son of Baldwin, for donning the prophetic mantle without apology. Although I’m a mindful, sober, agnostic, recluse now, I still remember working with those white people, sickened in soul and body, coming to church for advice on how to be more godly. Everybody knows what to do, but then, ah! it requires changing. Medication is easier and more reliable than meditation, apparently.
I believe addictions are rooted in illness of the mind, body, and spirit. I’ve seen 12-step programs help people function and heal. But 12-step programs, like Golden Rules and Platinum Rules, are non-profit and crowd-sourced, so they are typically pushed down and out of the way by pushers and profiteers.
So the people continue to fall in waves like modern-day plagues, and even an agnostic, humanistic, cynic may observe that things are about to get biblical around here. Not literally, of course, but some old-school images and metaphors keep coming to mind. Repentance; confession; judgment; amends — we thought we were done with all these things, in our progressive, post-churchy, post-12-step lives. But maybe not.
And there could indeed come a time when “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” And I’m pretty sure a lot of white people are just scared enough about that to want a little something to take the edge off.
Thank you again, Son of Baldwin, for helping shape the next justice.
