Tuesday 21st December
Sally Mann
"He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands."
Luke 1:53-55 NLT
For the first time ever, I read these words identifying with those who are dismissed rather than filled. I thought about charity as a poor relation of justice and what it might mean to enter the Kenarchy of God Mary announces. And I wrote this:
I want to stuff bags at the foodbank for
Grateful strangers
At safe distances.
Compliance.
I want to hand out the good shit to a line at a shelter
Bestowing goodness
Like I have a ton of it to spare.
Munificence.
Don’t ask me to resist fast fashion
My preferred therapy
Which costs the earth.
Complicity.
I want to shop at Amazon
I need next day delivery
I don’t want to see the bottles of piss thrown out of the cabs of gig workers who can’t afford a break.
Hide the landfill, the sweatshops, the precariat.
Don’t disturb the illusion that no-one pays the price for all of this
Profusion.
Collusion.
Fill my hands.
I’ll let some trickle down.
Trust me
I’m charity.
I want a religion that tells me all this stuff is a blessing
Go away Mary.
I’m not listening to your strange blessing.
What possible good can come from empty hands?
Sally is a cockney with a PhD and a chip on her shoulder. She is a Baptist minister and a lecturer in sociology. She helped set up Red Letter Christians in the UK. She doesn’t get out much. She likes it that way.