June 2: Inherited the Earth, a Contract, Joshua Mehigan, "Heard at the Men's Mission"

On another day, while heading downtown to get in a little shopping and to meet his friend Father Tom, he [Ives] could not help but wonder how life could go so badly for some, and so splendidly for others.  "Who inherited the earth?" had become a question he often asked himself; who deserved to prosper, who deserved to suffer?  On the train coming down he had counted seven beggars, who came in through the cars asking for money, one of them, a large black man, his lumberjack shirt open, with purple splotches all over his body, black-and-blue marks on his arms, and with a piece of filthy catheter jammed into his stomach just above his navel.  Ives gave something to every single one of them.

Ives never turns his back on the needs of others.  He teaches art classes and provides art supplies at local community centers.  He provides financial backing for his best friend's restaurant.  Every once in a while, he'll bring home free comic books from his advertising agency for neighborhood kids.  And, even though he's grief-stricken and angry, he writes letters to his son's killer in prison, sends him care packages, and helps him get paroled.

I like to think I'm a giving person.  When I hear of someone in need, I try to provide some kind of assistance (emotional or physical or financial).  However, I don't think I'm an Ives.  For instance, tonight I'm attending a meeting of contingent professors at the university where I teach.  We will be discussing the new contract proposal for full- and part-time faculty.  I find myself, at this moment, feeling very uncharitable.

You see, the new contract provides an alright package for full-time professors.  I have already received an e-mail from a full-timer, expressing satisfaction and urging ratification.  There's only one problem:  it's a pretty shitty contract for contingents.  Ives spends a good deal of his later life contemplating the question "Who inherited the earth?"  He wonders who deserves to prosper and who deserves to suffer.  Well, I know who will be inheriting the earth with this contract.

Perhaps I sound a little angry.  Maybe I am.  I try to remain positive in most situations.  Look for the best in everyone and everything.  The full-time professors at the university are simply thinking and acting in their own best interests.  I understand that.  It's human nature.  They are trying to maintain their jobs and lifestyles.  That's fine.

Sometimes, though, I wish everyone had a vision more universal, less myopic.  Poverty and hunger shouldn't exist in the United States.  Children shouldn't go to bed hungry, and the ill and infirm shouldn't be denied treatment because they lack little plastic insurance cards.  There's enough wealth for everyone to be happy and healthy and productive.

Yet, at an institution of higher learning, educated people bicker over who deserves a bigger piece of the pie.  I am not a communist or a socialist.  I don't believe in violent overthrow of political and academic regimes.  I just want to be able to teach and earn enough money to feed my family, pay my mortgage, go to the doctor if necessary, and simply be happy.

Saint Marty doesn't think that's asking too much.

Heard at the Men's Mission

by:  Joshua Mehigan

How many sons-of-bitches no one loves,
with long coats on in June and beards like nests--
guys no one touches without latex gloves,
squirming with lice, themselves a bunch of pests,
their cheeks and noses pocked like grapefruit rind--
fellas with permanent shits and yellowish eyes
who, if they came to in the flowers to find
Raphael there, could not be otherwise--

have had to sit there listening to some twat
behind a plywood podium in the chapel
in a loose doorman suit the color of snot,
stock-still except his lips and Adam's apple,
telling them how much Jesus loves the poor
before they got their bread and piece of floor?

Can't argue with Mandela...