Thursday, July 3, 2014

Hobby Lobby Day 3: A Bit of Poetry & A Whole Lot of Rage


Why does it matter?
A reasonable question:
Why does it matter that
HL is a corporation?  Are 
not corporations simply
organizations or structures
made up of people?  And if
so, why does it matter to say
that a corporation has religion?

This a friend did ask
and this I did truly and seriously
ponder and this is what I walked
away with . . . 

Quite simply, it matters . . . 

Because it is not true
[and Truth does indeed matter]

Because it is not true 
A corporation is not a person
We call it a legal fiction
Fiction is another word for ‘not true’
Made up
Pretend
A lie

in this case
a legal lie – 
meaning a lie
we agreed would be okay
because we all know it’s
a lie in advance – 

like Santa Claus
or the Easter Bunny
or Tooth Fairy
or “Yes, you look great in that dress”

yeah, like that

as a Christian
I do have to ask
exactly how it is
that a lie –
a self-professed lie
not just a liar –
as in someone who
sometimes lies – 
but a lie –
a thing which by
its very identity is
a sham, a pretense,
a farce, a false

yes, how that ‘thing’
that is Lie, albeit legal,
can be Truth?

I’m as fond of paradox as
the next person, but I tell
you, that dog won’t hunt
even if the cows and the chickens
do finally, at the last, come
home and come home to roost

***

Hobby Lobby had a prize
it’s truth – a pack of lies
that a SCOTUS – whatever that is – 
did say was true – ah, now we’re in biz!

Turns out you can be a bad Christian
so long as you’re not no Christian at all
and you get favors – the specialness
of your own peculiar brand of spe-ci-al-ity-ness
a prize – a ring – or perhaps a calf?
Oh now, let the cheating begin – at least by half

Your idolatry of your Christianity
would rouse hilarity if you had 
even a smidgeon of charity
but you are no-thing
so how can it even be?

It cannot

The Liars Club has met
and well met and it is 
so and we are done 
and undone and there
is no more laughter

not because it is a big
thing – no – truly you
are right – in and of –
itself – not so much –
but aye, here’s the rub –
finally we are unmasked
come out of our closet
and stood in the light
to be proudly revealed
and here we are –
a Christian nation

it would make a grown woman 
weep were it not so damned
funny – Christian, you see –
the follower of the Christ he
– that Way – would seem to 
say I am to take the irony
and give it another cheek –
and yes I do and yes I will –

but every now and then I do
wonder where’s Hobby’s
cheek, for I would surely
like to smite it and be forgiven
I would surely like to witness
that act of Christian fidelity
from a piece of paper filed 
away in a court house somewhere

and yes, my blood does boil
for I have not forgotten history
and the reasons that corporations
have existence in any form, 
fictitious or otherwise –
and let me assure you, 
it is not for the worship of God

never has been
never will be

and no, God does not need my defending
but thanks to SCOTUS, now I think I have
found it and it doth make me tremble –
for here stands the place where I make
the fool’s declaration

if there be corporations in heaven
then count me out . . . 

And surely this will make you laugh
and laugh some more – when it comes
to the ‘faith’ + corporations new math

[I do so love irony]

in its origins, 

‘corporation’

could 

and 

did

refer 

to

the 

S-T-A-T-E

[now wasn’t that worth the wait?]

Yes – to the government

to that very entity 
whose requirements 
the secret
hiding
masked
owners
seek
to avoid

it too is one of them
it too, apparently may have a god
[as opposed, of course, to being one, 
as the ancients – and apparently a few
moderns – you know who you are – did
and do insist]

isn’t the irony fabulously rich?

And of course it does make sense
for a corporation to claim a religious
identity when one of the main historic
purposes of corporations was the survival
of the entity beyond the death of its members
the idea of perpetuity
isn’t that a grand word?

The other word, of course, is
eternity

You see – of course the corporation has a god
[you were merely surprised because you thought
it thought itself to be a god – we always love that one]

anything that’s going to claim infinity as its shelf life
darned well better have a god, after all

ah, but you thought our god was money
close – but not quite –
it’s not money we worship, you see –
rather, it’s money that is the expression of our faith

you sing
you praise
you thank

we make money

it’s all the same

isn’t it?

***

I think 
if I am
honest
it is a 
matter 
of jealousy
I cannot be it
but alas
it can be me
and the sweeping
grandiosity
the canard of it all
does truly take my breath
my breathing me breath
away

and since presumably
it must choose
I wonder that a corporation
would ever choose to be
a woman

I would not were I it
for if I did
on my own petard
would I not be hoist?

***




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