Who decided that if I tie something tightly around my neck I will work more effectively? What the hell is that? It’s bad enough that we’re judged by what we look like, what we have, what we do, who we know and how hip we aren’t. All of those assessments are based on the shape of the shell that we shuffle around in. Each of us is a sweet and chewy, rich and gooey inside, wrapped, rather trapped in a cookie crumbly, meat and mumbly outside. We’re shapeless souls walking around in opaque prisons that misrepresent, obscure and lie about us. Angels walk by in ugly, bulging bubbles, while devils prance around in svelte, melt in your mouth hard candy shells that hide the grotesque truth. Seeing-eye people are blinded by sight, while blind people have got it good because they can hear right through the lies. Although they may judge people by the sounds of their voices or their manner of speaking. So really only those who are blind and deaf have got it. Unless they judge people by how they smell, taste or feel. I guess Helen Keller was the most blessed of all.
If all people are created equal, how can we accept a society where one person is worth more than another? It’s the law of supply and demand, except for one problem…people are not “supply.” We are not inventory. We are people, reflections of the soul of God, not to be treated like cattle, chattel or capital. An ear of corn doesn’t care if it gets less on the market because there’s more of it than there are carrots. But when the boss gets paid more than the worker, it puts the boss in a position of importance (note the root of that word is “import,” which means it came from somewhere else), while the employee is literally “worth less.” This obviously false hierarchy puts more barriers, more “fakeness,” more separation between the people supposedly created equal, our worth and our state, turning our truth to the fake. Money and authority create the illusion of superiority. Because without the worker the boss is no boss at all, just a loss on the balance sheet of inequity.
Do we really need to add to the fakeness by dressing up in a uniformity that does nothing but supersize the lies? Any back-stabbing, psychosociopathic freak can put on a suit and tie. But do the clothes make the man? No, they rate him, rake him by stripping him of his naked truth and hiding the true, birthday suit. God created everything and saw that “it’s all good.” But Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and bad, and cut the All in half. Can you cut a rainbow in two? Is a tree “good” or “bad”? Is water “right” or “wrong”? Smart good, stupid bad. Tall good, short bad. Pretty good, ugly bad. Tie good, slob bad. So instead of being happy with exactly how God made us, with varying degrees of ugliness, stupidity, clumsiness and imperfection, with our stinky smells and bodily fluids, our silly laughs and awkward pauses, fears and trepidations, freaks and fascinations, we spend our lives trying to be what we’re not: perfect. We grab for fig leaves to cover up our nakedness, ashamed of who God made us, spending our lives trying to create ourselves in our own image. Ties are lies to God. Bearing false witness instead of our souls. We are pretending to be something we’re not and it has got to stop. Ties are binding us, choking our neck and neck until we strangle all we feel and everything that’s real.
When we see the talking head with a tie, slicing us off a piece of the pie, do we tell ourselves, this guy must be trusted, because he’s wearing the uniformity, he’s demonstrating that he’s inherently more inherent, because he’s toeing the line, doing the time, like everyone else? That really just tells us he’s asleep in sheep’s clothing. Anyone can put it on, but not everyone can take it off and be real in the raw. Here I am, buff as a bee, take it or leave it, naked or need it, fake it or bleed for the sake of the seed. Step in line brother man, before they throw you out with the trash without the cash. Are we heading for a fall for that? Are we fooled? Are we fools? If we cower by the hour we give them all the power. If we believe the lies, we belie the skies. We want to hear the news, not the review, the truth not the skew, the real not the steal, the reform not the uniform. Tell it like it is, not like you want me to not think it is. Because we’re listening to what you say, not what you pay. We’re hearing what is there, not what you wear.
I thought in America we prided ourselves on individuality, the freedom to do what we want to do, to be what we want to be. If Russia was so bad, with it’s totalauthoritarian cookie-cutter mentality, fetal fatality, coerced communal banality, then why are we acting like we like it so much? Afraid to be me, afraid to be seen, afraid to be real, wrapped in a cloak of steal, the choke of nameless, insane, faceless sameness. America is listening to Brittney Spears and eating at McDonald’s, over and over again. Everyone wants to come here for a grand slam breakfast. Every kid wants to go to the house in the neighborhood where they serve candy for dinner. But we’ll die from malnutrition. America, America, God bled his grace on you. So shine thy good, with brotherhood, from sea to can’t you see?
It’s just another way to make us pay, another trick to keep our nose to the grindstone, so we won’t look up and say, “Hey, wait a minute, where is that guy going with all my money?” Wait a minute, he told me if I worked hard I could have my fair share of the American dream. But he taught me, bought me, then caught me unaware. By the time we’ve shopped, laundered, showered, shaved all our body hair off, deodorized, painted, perfumed, starched, pressed, tied and choked, we’re full of cognitive dissonance: I must be buying what they’re selling if I’m going to all this trouble. I was too busy watching MTV, shopping for an SUV, looking for a tie to match my threepeat suit, searching for a sock in the face to match my steel-toed boot. While I was watching the basket they stole my balls; while I was watching soccer they socked it to me; the WWF made me deaf; the chopping mall made me trip and fall; while I rocked and rolled they stole my soul; while I was trying to get laid, they all got paid. And left me here tied up in nots.
I have a dream, that one day people will be judged not by the tightness of their ties, but by the content of their character. So take it off; refuse to be judged, refuse to be budged by the trudge of begrudge. Wear what you want and be free to be free. To be unbound get up off the ground. Take off your tie and fly high. But don’t just take it off…burn it. Don’t be a heel – get real.
It’s a wrap.