MARGE, DO YOU EVER ASK yourself, “What is it all about?” I mean livin’ and dyin’ and the long stretch of struggle that comes in between.
I was over to my cousin Nellie’s house and she had just come through a great store of trouble and it looked like a fresh supply was due any minute. Well, honey, she threw up her hands and said, “Why? Why? Why? What is it all about? I go out to work every day on a hard, low-payin’ job, I live in this broke-down, high-rent apartment and I just barely manage to buy enough food so’s I can keep my strength up to go back to that low-payin’ job, and things go ’round like that year in and year out. For what? Why!”
You should have heard her, Marge. “Folks goin’ off to war,” she says, “killin’ other folks, hatred scattered everywhere near and far, everybody actin’ like dog eat dog and the devil take the hindmost! Every Sunday we get together and sing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ and then go back to the same old scuffle come Monday mornin’.”
And she’s right, Marge! Ain’t it awful? Just think—a man is headed for the grave…. Excuse me, Marge. I meant no disrespect, let’s say he’s headed for Heaven, but before he goes, he’s got a mission to accomplish, so he says, “Before I go to Heaven, I’m gonna own all the old shanty buildings in my town and charge the poor folks so much rent that I’ll be able to buy me a car and a big house with a swimming pool.
“And before I go to Heaven, I’m goin’ to see that all the schools stay Jim Crow so’s that different races can keep hatin’ each other. I’m goin’ to keep black people off of juries, also—before I go to Heaven, I’m going to drop bombs on people and also raise the food prices. Furthermore, before I go to Heaven, I’m goin’ to vote against free hospitals for children. I’m goin’ to build houses of prostitution and more jails to put the prostitutes in. Before I go to Heaven, I am also going to build me an atom bomb shelter, so that I will not go to Heaven too soon.
“Before I go to Heaven, I’m goin’ to join the Klan and burn crosses on folks doorsteps … and bum folks if necessary. And last but not least, before I go to Heaven, I’m goin’ to give away fifty Christmas baskets every year to the poor, regardless of their race, creed or color!”
Can you imagine that, Marge? … You’re absolutely right, girl! Life should be more than grabbing and getting. Like I told Nellie, “Ain’t it plain, to see the mission is loving and working to glorify the earth and all that’s in it? It’s to heal the blind, not only with operations and glasses but with knowledge and learning; to cure the sick, not only in hospitals but the folks who are sick at heart; to feed the hungry! Divide the loaves and fishes among all the children in the world and see the great amount we’ll still have left over. It’s to find delight in one another and bring about the true brotherhood of all mankind.”
Well, Marge, Nellie smiles at me and says, “Mildred, the last man that taught those things got crucified, and if he was back here today, he’d get it again!”
“Don’t I know it!” I said. “But what did he say? ‘Lo, I am with you always!’”
“Look around, Nellie,” I said. “Every age has somebody teachin’ those things, but the golden age of peace and joy will come when we stop the crucifixion!” Well, leastways, Marge, that’s how I think—or else, as Nellie says, “What is it all about?”