I believe that it was the fabulously funny Nora Ephron who said, “I feel bad about my neck.”  It was an aging thing.  I’m confident that the sales from her book have her and her neck feeling much better.  I, on the contrary, am not doing so well.  I’m starting to feel bad about other people’s necks.  Their backs.  Even their feet.

Mostly, I feel bad about the cross falling.  The cross has fallen.  It’s been splintering for years.  Certain people’s hands on it have virtually rendered it meaningless.  Have you seen it lately?  It’s tattooed upside-down on the necks of drunks, the otherwise oblivious, and Goths who, I suspect, would scatter from darkness with the quickness of roaches if someone turned on the light.  Lavishly ornate tattoos of the cross are blinking like neon signs from the peek-a-boo places of lost little girls.  The cross is rising up from the bulging muscles of convicts who apparently had little time to find God until a judge gave them some behind bars.  But, to borrow a phrase from Alicia Keys, “Yo, yo, yo,” better late than never!

Then there’s the worst of them all—the ones who are most deceived.  I mean, what kind of hood rat spends a quarter of a million dollars on a cross so heavy that it hangs as burdensome around his neck as a bastard child?  Some divorcee somewhere with three growing kids is thinking, My light bill is only $112.28 and I can’t pay it.  A husband and wife (with a family of four and on the verge of losing their home because of joblessness) are thinking, If we only had four thousand dollars, we could keep our house.

Don't hate the jools. Hate the fewels.

Jacob the Jeweler is not the only one.  But he, of all people, has literally put the icing on the cake.  Does the name Jacob still mean thief?  Trickster?  He’s robbing these fools!

This is how we do it in Romania!

Who and what are we so-called Christians glorifying?  When we drop that kind of cash on a cross, we don’t glorify God or his blessings upon our life.  We glorify our arrogant, ignorant, one-month-out-of-the-hood, ain’t used to nothin’, low self-esteem-havin’, fake preacher, rapper, wiggah/niggah, wanna be fly, devil worshippin’ selves.  Anyone with eyes not blinded by the bling can see that the money spent on these crosses says more about a love for money, excess, and a lust for shine than a love for The One Chosen To Hang From The Tree.

Am I the only one who feels convicted (guilty) if curses slip from her pink cartoon lips when she’s wearing her cross or feels squeamish about wearing it to bars?  (I’m Christian, not perfect.)  Black sororities frown on Greek letters in unbecoming places.  Shouldn’t we so-called Christians observe at least the same reverence for the cross, the holiest of symbols?

Like you, I sometimes wear my cross for protection.  But if I stopped casting my shadow in places with artificial light—lo and behold—if we all would stop behaving in ways that cause us to go to jail, disrespect ourselves and others, stop using that which is valuable (our bodies, the cross) in asinine ways, maybe neither you nor I would be such a drain on Christ’s precious protection.

To show that we really know God, wouldn’t it be something if when we felt the urge to misuse valuable resources (like money) or get tatted, we would stop straddling the fence of  right and wrong and just say no?  Along with building an arsenal of weapons, gettin’ high, and vacationing in jail, rapper TI is a husband and father who builds homes in distressed areas of his city.  Along with making music, stars, and babies, Diddy—with cross swinging—gets it popping with the fat girls.  Is donating to local hospitals for services for the poor—our good deeds—just for show? 

Hova says, "I'm far from being God, but I work go$damn hard."

Jay-Z urges us without breathing a word to “do what thou wilt.”  Oprah claims to know the Lord, but her fear is stronger than her faith in Him; otherwise, she’d trust Him to find her the right man to marry.  Who are we?  Who are these Christians?  Does God even recognize His own?

All I’m saying is that if we don’t really know Christ, maybe we should consider loosening our grip and giving the practicing Christians black their cross.  Like some of us, Christ worked two blue-collar jobs (carpenter and preacher).  Though people whispered that His mother was a whore who became pregnant out of wedlock, He was raised with some awesome morals and values—like many of us.  And like His mother Mary, He also risked His reputation to further God’s plan to give others a future and a hope.  Like some of us do.  (God bless the women and men of the US armed forces!)

Instead of pissing on the tree, we could use our hands to lift the cross back up to where it belongs in our hearts.  A simple wooden cross would best remind us of Christ’s life, the life we all should be living.  Shouldn’t His humble beginnings, most of all, remind us to stay humble, to be good to others, to give up childish (fruitless) things, and to remember always—and in all our doings—His terrible and amazing sacrifice?

No one truly believes that God gave His only begotten son for such worthless and useless freedoms as these in the photos.  Not even you, the one with the cross on your ____.

Important Public Service Announcement

“The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night . . . therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”  This has been a warning to the unruly, courtesy of I Thessalonians, to walk worthy of God.  Everyone does not die old (or saved).  Rest in peace, Heavy D.

So, tell me.  You cool with all this or what?  By the way, does Souljah Boy (Somebody better tell-em) still have more money than God?  Does he know that can be fixed?