Why We Need Christmas
The world is full of various expressions of the depravity that can be the human soul. This kind of hatred is disgusting and history has shown us where it leads. Human trafficking, especially with children, is a human evil I hate to contemplate. But having just read this story about the open air drug market in Philadelphia, I cannot help but wonder if I have found rock bottom. It tells a tale of a unique kind of human trafficking, not where people are bought and sold, but where they are indeed held as slaves without even the minimal housing and sustenance accorded to slaves that provide labor of some sort.
The piece opens:
Folks come here for the drugs. Sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers, all drawn by the promise of the strongest and cheapest highs in America. Somehow, they—the drugs and the people—always end up on Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, the country’s most notorious open-air drug market.
For years the street ran on heroin; then gangs started putting fentanyl, or “fetty,” in the dope. Then came the animal tranquilizer xylazine, known locally simply as “tranq.” Now, there is something new: medetomidine.
Medetomidine delivers a shorter, more powerful high than the varieties of dope that preceded it, and the crash is faster and more brutal. By some estimates, it is 200 times stronger than xylazine. “There’s no stages to the high,” says Tony, who is in his early 30s and has a blue diamond tattoo next to his eye. “You go straight to sleep.”
Here’s what you learn as you read on. These are not drugs you take for the effect or the “high,” these are drugs you take to stave off withdrawal. The people taking these drugs do not feel good when they take them, but they do stave off the very real possibility of death when they stop taking them. And note how it starts – adding to heroin. In other words the purveyors of these goods are actively seeking to make these people sicker and sicker and more and more dependent on the goods they sell – rendering the user as a slave that can do nothing but pay them more money. The users are almost literally turned into human cash machines.
Christmas is the beginning of the story of human salvation. And while I desire salvation for the addicted in this scenario, I find myself wishing death upon those creating it – which reveals the weakness in my own heart. Which points out that we all need Christmas and where the real equity lies. Equity lies in our capability for evil and our subsequent need for salvation – salvation that begins with Christmas.
I do not have a clue how to untangle the ugly mess of humanity that is that drug market in Philly – or the ones like it across the nation and around the world. I honestly don’t – such places and situations have plagued the nation as long as I can remember. But I do know that whatever the solution may be it begins with Christmas – with the good news that God joined us, in the form of a baby born to Mary.
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