Twelve Grand

I admittedly had some harsh comments regarding the hordes of Christians who drive their precious Land Rovers and Mercedes to drop off their kids at Christian Bros. High School. These are the people I commute alongside on my little bicycle on MLK Jr. Blvd. in the morning.

I don't usually cast 'success' in a negative light. But when you're driving a $45k+ rig through Oak Park well in excess of the speed limit with complete disregard to the less-financially-abled local bicyclists and pedestrians, to drop off your children at a school located in a community you wouldn't be caught dead in at any other time other than child-drop-off-time, then I've got a problem with that.

I recently learned that Christian Bros. is suffering from the same economic quagmire that the rest of this great nation is suffering from. Lower enrollment quotas...primarily due to the $12,000 annual tuition fees.

Damn! Twelve grand! On top of the property taxes they pay to support public education, they also intentionally yield this expense to send their child to a private school. Now I understand why I see all these expensive motor vehicles driving through the most economically depressed section of the city; they have to make bank to fund this enterprise.

The wealthy, Christian or otherwise, never allow themselves to be put into a position to have to say they're sorry, and they make every effort to ensure you know they are successful, to show that they 'have arrived'. And what better way to demonstrate this than to drive a vehicle with wanton disregard through a neighborhood worth more than two times the annual gross income of any of its inhabitants?

It's surreal to see this, it really is. But it isn't anything I wouldn't come to expect from my Merika. We are fond of flaunting our excesses. I infer from my observations that this is what Jesus would do, too.