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I’ve been thinking a lot about Fat Joe, and his angry music. I think I know why he’s angry and I think I’m part of the problem. Bono said “Lament is the outcry of the overwhelmed.” I wouldn’t give you 50 Cents for Fat Joe’s lyrics, but I do want to talk about the Elephant in the Room.

There is this huge problem… the elephant in the room… that no one wants to talk about.

The problem is the same, ever since my father broke fellowship with his Father. He blamed it on his wife, and she blamed it on the snake, but as they left the garden that day, my father knew deep in his heart that he was the problem.

I am the problem.

It was a very hot day to be working the plow. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, he cursed the thistles and thorns, but knew in his heart, that he was the problem.

I am the problem. Don Miller said that on page 20 of Blue Like Jazz. How could Don know that I’m the problem, when he doesn’t even know me? It’s like God must have told him that I was the problem.

Sometimes I worry about what people think if I admit that “I’m the problem”. However, when I admit that I’m the problem, part of the problem is solved.

People think what they want to think. People believe what they want to believe. People follow rap stars like 50 Cent, or Fat Joe because they like the message, or somehow the message is helping to them to understand the chaos of the cosmos.

I discovered another thing in Blue Like Jazz — while reading on my Friday morning bus ride:

“People hardly care what you believe, as long as you believe something. If you are passionate about something, people will follow you because they think you know something they don’t, some clue to the meaning of the universe… If a rapper is passionately rapping about how great his rap is, his passion is pointed to nothing. He isn’t helping anything. His beliefs are self serving and shallow. If a rapper, however, is rapping about his community, about oppression and injustice, then he is passionate about a message, something outside himself.”

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