Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
-- Abraham Lincoln
I have always had an awareness of power. I don't know if it was because one of my father's favorite responses to a question was rank has it's privileges or what. But it's there. My fascination, obsession, with it doesn't always find fellow travelers. I once mentioned in a Bible Study that I thought one of the biggest problems people had with Jesus was sibling rivalry - we were jealous that He got to be God and we didn't. I don't remember seeing that many blank faces staring at me before. I might have been accidently speaking in tongues, for I know. A big no no at our Bible Church.
Research has included Barbara Ehrnreich's Nickel and Dimed, on (Not) getting by in America. She basically takes a few months out of her life, works minimum wage jobs and tries to make a living, you know, pay rent, etc. She has the advantage of having PH.D in Biology, of course, but apparently knowledge of the multiplication of one celled life doesn't matter when you're a Merry Maid in Maine. It's quite a fascinating book. In the very beginning, she mentions that her family isn't that far from its blue collar roots. Her grandfather, or father, was a miner, and her husband did factory work until he got on as a union organizer. Thing is, it wasn't that foreign a culture for her. But for the rest of the "rich" the life of the maids that clean their houses are just as different as the life of some Muslim prince. Here in America. Difference is, the upper crust doesn't have as much awareness of it, at least not a truly compassionate understanding. Just haven't been there.
More fodder. We'll see where it goes.
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