New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) recently gave a speech at Interfaith Breakfast, which was held at the New York Public Library.
Some of Adams’s remarks have caught the attention of many. Adams blamed school shootings on the lack of religion in public schools.
And I talk about this often that I want to share with this group. When I was growing up in South Jamaica, Queens, I was learning how to box and every time I would get in the ring, I would lose the fight. And my trainer will say, "Eric, the problem is you leave your best fight in the gym and you're supposed to take it into the ring with you." And that is what has happened to many of us. The synagogue is the gym. The church is the gym. The Sikh temple is the gym. The mosque is the gym. You are there for training. You are not there to leave your best worship in the gym. Cause if we are bringing our best fight in the ring, we would not have homeless in this city. We would not have a crisis of domestic violence. We would not have children because when we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools. So the reflection point of today, when we do an analysis of these annual coming-together, is to state, "Are we leaving our best fight in the gym? Are we finding ways to really take what we took in the gym and bring it into the real fight?"
Eric Adams is not a believer in the separation of church and state.
And it means instilling in them some level of faith and belief. Ingrid was so right. Don't tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies. I can't separate my belief because I'm an elected official. When I walk, I walk with God. When I talk, I talk with God. When I put policies in place, I put them in with a God-like approach to them. That's who I am. And I was that when I was that third-grader, and I'm going to be that when I leave government. I am still a child of God and will always be a child of God and I won't apologize about being a child of God. It is not going to happen.
At least Eric Adams is good with analogies, especially those that involve a sponge.
And I know I say this… So I talked this speech before and I want to just say it again because I just love this analogy, the sponge. Some of you have heard it, but I want everyone to hear it. Rushing out of my door, knocking over a glass of water. I took the sponge and wiped up the countertop. And what happens when you feel the liquid in the sponge? It's saturated. In order to get that saturation out, you have to do what? You got to wring it out. We are saturated with so much despair every day, all day. You can't pick up a paper without someone reminding you of the negative parts of our lives. You're meeting people every day and all they're doing is telling you what's wrong with you. All they're doing is telling you you no longer look this way. You no longer talk this way, how bad you are. You’re listening to the negative sounds everywhere you go.
Today is the day we got to wring it out. You are not going to be able to receive the purifications of God's blessing if you keep your sponge saturated. Some of our souls are so saturated with despair and harm and pain. Today I'm saying to you, "Wring it out, wring it out." You can't receive with these imams, with these pastors, what these rabbis, what they're giving you. If you're so saturated with so much despair. Wring it out. Take a moment to start your day breathing. Start your day meditating. Start your day with self-affirmation. Leave signs on your mirrors and on your windows of how beautiful you are and how God is not finished with you yet and how you are going to overcome. That's how you start the process of wringing out all of that negativity that you receive throughout today.
But, many do not believe that Eric Adams is helping New York City with austerity.