Tithe?

 My first activity as a new member of the Circle City Clubhouse, helping staff the snack bar back in February 2016 in this alleged "recovery space" for mental health consumers, I had to endure another member, Nathan, a fundamentalist Christian, going on a ten-minute rant on how he wished he could afford to tithe to his church.  Something that really irritated me immensely as an avowed atheist, though I wisely said nothing to him.  When I got home, I wrote this poem about him and his rant, prefacing it with these words:  "[I]nspired by an evangelical Christian who went off, totally out of the blue, on an irritating 'Praise the Lord' Godsmack rant that also expressed his eagerness to tithe; so irritating was he with his rant I felt compelled to retort to him with this poem."  Truly, I can't think of anything more untoward than poor people somehow feeling they have to give 10% of their income to some church, where all it will do is line the pockets of the church's pastor and provide them, the tithing poor, with nothing useful of or material substance.  A bigger waste of money and energy is truly hard to imagine!--GF

Tithe?

Why the hell

would you

do that?

To give back

to God

for what he

has given you?

(Though it is

indeed debatable,

to say the least,

if he’s given you

anything at all!)

But of course,

your own

religious

understanding

of God

means that,

to you, God

is infinite,

all-knowing,

all-powerful,

unbounded and

complete in himself

without anything

coming from you—

so, by your

own faith,

the last thing God

needs from you,

if anything,

is the lousy

ten percent of your income

that you, a poor person,

can’t afford to give

in the first place!

But it isn’t God

at all

who “needs”

your tithing—

it’s the ministers

and pastors

who befuddle you

on this

in order to

line their own pockets;

to use you,

to manipulate you

through guilt,

to “give” them

the lifestyle

to which

they wish to

become accustomed!

That’s really what

you get from tithing—

played for

a chump,

and absolutely

nothing more.

Keep your

ten percent, then;

you need it

a hell of a

lot more

than either

God or your

pastor needs it!