Whose Names Are Unknown

by Sanora Babb

Religion was for the poor;

Was not Christ a man, with blood in his veins and a heart for people? He did not die that they might be saved; he was murdered, as good as lynched, for his ideas that woke the poor enduring people like the ones now in this little church in town, he was killed for his ideas that threatened the enthroned greed of the times.

“No thanks coming for what’s no more’n right.”

What things were in the world that he would never know or see because the simple needs of staying alive captured his life from sun to sun and year to year? Why was one man with leisure to waste and another with no hour to spare?

“Interesting too,” Anna said, “how we’re not really divided according to our nationalities, but by how much or how little money we have. Most of the differences are acquired, they depend on what money can buy you.

“Gee.” She said disappointed. “Everything nice costs money and everything bad just comes for nothing.”