Change of plans - speech #6 redux

And, here's the speech I actually gave. I made the mistake of listening to the top seven speeches on American Rhetoric here, and I had to re-write it the night before to add a little more meat. I won another ribbon! (To be fair, I had no competitors.)


Project 6
Vocal Variety

“Stairs”
July 26, 2006


Intro:
Stairs have been on my mind lately. I’m drawing a seven story condominium with two levels of parking beneath. There are a lot of stairs.

I. But this is a luxury condominium with 4 elevators. The stairs are strictly utilitarian. They’re a product of the building codes. A building this tall needs at least two fire rated exits, and these are them. The dimensions in every direction are exact to the thousandth of an inch. They’re made to be functional. They’re so complicated to draw, with the handrails and guardrails at certain heights, criss-crossing the balusters as they go up and down, that there’s not enough time to make them beautiful or dramatic. And that’s not the point. They’re not meant to be seen. They’re not meant to be used. They’re only an escape.

II. Eight miles away, in a small church near the ground in downtown Raleigh, I meet with a pastor and a table full of leaders in his community. We’re also trying to design an escape. We look for an escape from poverty, from generations of need, from a lack of ambition, and a lack of ideas good enough to change people’s hearts.

III. Some might say that they need a stair. They need a fire escape up from the pit they’re in. And that’s not a bad metaphor.

IV. We can give them steps to take. We can show them the direction out. One step might be financial assistance for their needs at hand. One step might be jobs training and a connection to an employer. Another step might be after school programs to pick up where their integrated schools have still failed to inspire.

V. But how far will that get them? Three steps in the air? Four?
a. And why would they take that first step? Is there any incentive at the first landing?
b. And if they got to the second floor, where would they be? Who would they know? What reason would they have to stay?

VI. Stairs might be a strange metaphor, but it’s not a new one. You’ve heard Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” in all its contorted forms. But, do you remember the source? In Genesis, Jacob went to sleep in the Promised Land and he had a dream. He saw angels ascending and descending the stairs between earth and heaven. God has come down to man. Man doesn’t have to climb the stairs on his own.

VII. So, in some ways, poverty is a pit. It’s an impossible hole to scale. To get out takes a miracle. It takes an elevator! Or better, it takes a rocket ship to jump higher than anyone can climb.

VIII. However, we must not confuse the community of this tiny church on the ground with the poverty that surrounds it. Just as we must not confuse my luxury condo in the sky with any height of perfection or attainment. We must not confuse the altitude with the metaphor. Both spiritual poverty and wealth may be present at the same time, just as both poverty and spiritual wealth may be present at the same time.

IX. If we build new stairs for the poor, they should be stairs of family, rebuilding so many broken homes. Stairs of a just education, above the betrayal of the system. They should be stairs of new local business and enterprise to bring funds into the community instead of frittering funds constantly outside the community.

X. When I visit my friends in the small church on the ground, the only stairs I use are the few steps going up to their church door. We sit around the same table in the same room. We're on the same level. We build the stairs together, but more importantly, we all watch for the stairs that have come down to us.