“What
do you have that is not a gift?”---Bishop Lawrence Reddick, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
When
Sheila and I started out we were broke.
I worked nights at a convenience store.
She closed at Taco Bell. The
weekend we got married my boss fired me while I was in Mississippi getting
married. We had one car between us, and I totaled it the week before we got married. So we were
broke, I was unemployed, and we had no
car.
Now
we are a pretty firmly middle class American family.
I
don’t steal and I don’t panhandle. What I
have was bought with what I earned. But,
what I’ve earned was only possible because of what I have been given.
- Government Pell Grants and student loans made it possible to finish my degrees.
- Tax revenue funding the public school system made it possible for me to have a career in education.
- Discrimination lawsuits forced Alabama to pay me and other teachers 100% of the approved salary matrix.
- The giant teacher union I joined, run by Paul Hubbert, fought for me to get a raise every 2 to 3 years, sometimes 2 years in a row.
- That same union protected my pension plan every time corporations and legislators wanted to raid it, defund it, or turn it into something like the 401(k)’s and modified plans that lost all their money a few years ago.
- Heavily subsidized health insurance kept my family out of debt for the many medical emergencies we’ve had.
- And on and on and on.
These
are the bootstraps by which my wife and I pulled ourselves into the middle
class.
But
the straps were not attached to our own hard-working feet. We rose from broke, unemployed, and barely
employed to the American middle class because we were strapped to and lifted by
people and institutions and policies designed to help those lower down not just
cater to those higher up.
I
donate what I can but I don’t have the money to pay for every other family’s needs. What I do have in generous portions is a
voice that I can use to advocate for actions that meet the needs of many more
families struggling like Sheila and I were.
Considering all that I have been given, how dare I not give back such as I have? How dare I forget what it’s like to be the one who needs help? How dare I pretend that I have gained anything by just pulling on my own bootstraps?
“What
do you have that is not a gift?”
If
you’re honest, nothing.
Remember
that.
For everyone to whom much
is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed,
of him they will ask the more. --- Jesus, Luke 12: 48
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield,
Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking
Organization (SAYNO); and director
of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human
Development (NIHD).
Subscribe
to my personal blog www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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Support
by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles
Chapel CME Church
P
O Box 132
Fairfield,
Al 35064
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