Roger Porter
July 17, 2011
It’s a crazy feeling when you’re dead tired but can’t manage to go to sleep. It feels like you’re suspended in life. As if you are walking on a tightrope between consciousness and fantasy. Sometimes it takes an extreme amount of focus just to get there. Just to block everything out for long enough to slip away.
I imagine if we could actually see the Promised Land— after all those speeches, sermons, and biblical verses that have made us believe in its existence— then we would be too afraid to actually set foot on it. I fear that we have fallen in the love with purchasing the dream being sold to us rather than loving the dream itself.
We like the big man with the big voice who attracts the large crowds. We like to be moved by fancy words, by eloquent rhetoric, and a glowing smile. We can’t resist the charm of that charismatic person. We can’t help but to visualize what he tells us and we can’t help but to be swept up in fantasy when we hear him preach. So of course we pay the man for his troubles. We pay for the show. We pay handsomely for the dream yet our sleepy eyes are still open and we are still very much awake.
We still trust those people who seem to be omnipresent. Those people who worship the cameras. Those people who have been slowly raping the movement since our most brilliant luminary was slain. We still follow these individuals; however, if they were actually a threat to injustice then they would have been murdered a long time ago. The last time I saw one of these men on television I was with my daughter. She pointed to the screen and asked; “Who is that daddy?” To which I responded; “That’s a clown with no make-up.”
In our hearts we are pure but in practice we are shallow. There is more to life than merely leading or following. Individuality still exists. There can still be honesty and oh yes there is love. If we learned to love ourselves then there is no way we would be conned by these wretched people. We would create our own dream and we would live in it forever right here on Earth.
Amen.