To My Friend BJ:
We arrived at Mumusville on time for Christmas. Everywhere we went, the air was filled with the stench of a wasteland. The people looked dejected and rejected, typical of lost souls who have lost everything.
Mumusvillians cannot live their years their way. None of them had more, did more, or enjoyed more laughs and good times. At Christmas, Mumusvillians are buried alive by a paralyzing chill of poverty. They look directionless. Confused. Conscripted. Lost. All hope is gone. They dropped down. Tired. Exhausted. Staring deeply into the unearthly darkness all around them.
BJ, at Christmas, Mumusvillians are at the bottom of a sewer pit - foul and ugly. They are choked by the stench. They are consumed by feelings of hopelessness and pain. In Mumusville, everything is violent. A lifetime of pain is squeezed into every moment. Pain beyond the memory of pain. It’s like thousands of knives tearing them to pieces millions of times over. This Christmas at Mumusville, it’s a celebration of suffering, sorrow, and sadness.
Their looks revealed that far too long, they have been pulverized beyond endurance. They have no more strength for their torment. No enough tears for their sorrow. No room in their minds for such grief, such gloom. Their screams for the torment to end could be heard miles away. But no one can hear them. No one is listening. No one cares. Their minds had collapsed. Their emotions shattered to dust. Their bodies imprisoned in these flames.
Mumusvillians are celebrating Christmas outside the shelter of the law. The celebration is defined by the climate of fear, massive epidemic of killings, sexual violence, illegal detention, assault, police abuse, and other forms of oppression.
Mumusvillians celebrate Christmas in the midst of poverty. They are exhausted and extinguished by poverty. Poverty in Mumusville is despair and desperation-inducing. It is hope-crushing. Poverty had enclosed Mumusvillians in a prison cell with no doors or windows. It is claustrophobic. There is no way out. No escape! There is no guarantee that life will get better. Mumusvillians either have become hardened or submit to fate. They don’t live life. They don’t thrive. They only survive. This Christmas in Mumusville is like no other.
BJ, like Mary Harris "Mother" Jones (1830? — 1930) said, “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
I look forward to hosting you in the summer when we will all talk and laugh. And time will stand for a little while.
Until next time…
Be safe and God bless!
Warmly,
Bee-Jay