Tonight we went to see “Woody Sez”, the Life and Music of Woody Guthrie at the Strackner Cabaret at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. The music of Woody Guthrie has always appealed to me. Although he sings of his times in the great depression, his lyrics ring true today. One of his songs, Tom Joad was based on John Steinbeck’s novel “Grapes of Wrath”. At the end of the novel, about the Joad family moving to California during the dust bowl of 30’s, Tom Joad has to leave the camp due to trouble he had defending a preacher friend. He wakes up his mother to say good- by and she asked when she will see him again. The end of the song is based on his response:
“Ever’body might be just one big soul,
Well it looks that a-way to me.
Everywhere that you look, in the day or night,
That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma,
That’s where I’m a-gonna be.
Wherever little children are hungry and cry,
Wherever people ain’t free.
Wherever men are fightin’ for their rights,
That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma.
That’s where I’m a-gonna be.”
Great persons of our times, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day tell us we are all brothers and sisters and we need to be wherever people are hungry, homeless or fighting for their rights. To be in solidarity with the poor and marginalized is, as Pope Francis says of the Church, where we ought to be.
Today I saw a cartoon, side and below, about the top 1% of the world controlling 46% of world’s wealth. I am not in the top 1% but still live a privileged life but struggle to be where “people ain’t free.” “That is where I’m wanna be.
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