Stop Talking

Observation…

Why is it that our conservative brothers and sisters feel the need to tell us who they are constantly?

Telling us even if we already know…

They love America.

They are Christian.

They are heterosexual.

They are pro-second Amendment.

They are pro-life.

They are pro-billionaire.

They are pro-Putin.

They are pro-MAGA.

They are pro-Trump.

They are anti-immigrant.

They are anti-Islamic.

They are anti-brown people.

They are anti-gay.

They are anti-green.

I grew up in and around a very conservative far-right Christian family and friends, and I have first-hand experience being told over and over again as if I’m an idiot.

As if I’m an idiot who can’t remember you don’t like to drive in bad neighborhoods.

You don’t like to send your kids to schools that aren’t white.

You don’t like to live next to people who don’t go to your church.

Over and over and over again.

This is rant!

There is only so many times I can hear in 63 years on this planet that Jesus loves me and died for my sins.

I get it!

I understand the story.

I don’t need it repeated to me over and over as if I have no long term memory.

I saw Old Yeller once.

I don’t need to see it again.

I get it.

I get it you don’t like the change you see in the world.

I understand you don’t like to share.

You want everyone to know how important you are.

How you’re better than everyone else.

I know you think that it’s true.

Believe me, I know you think you are granted a special dispensation to rule the world because you’re white.

I can hear you.

Stop talking.

Listen…

Listen to what you sound like?

Listen to the venom.

Listen to the hate.

Listen to the driver in your life called anger.

Consider… instead of talking to me, start talking to yourself.

Start telling yourself you can be loved.

Start telling yourself you can be forgiven.

Start letting yourself just be.

Let go.

And then…

Come join us where the world is full of joy.

Where we don’t have to tell each other we already know.

Peace

Toby aka Daniel J. Frey

Changes

Since the beginning, humanity has used every ounce of strength in its imagination in wanting to believe that change doesn’t happen.

Cave paintings, scrolls, religion, books, plays, philosophy, photography, film, radio, TV, politics, and war all have espoused a belief that change shouldn’t and can’t happen.

Big problem, though…

The fundamental property of this universe we all live in is change.

Everything from galaxies to microbes all change.

Evolve or…

Die.

So, anyone or anything trying to stop change from happening is on the losing side of the universe.

Trying to stop change from happening just can’t win.

It’s called impossible.

Now, understandably, change is not always welcome.

None of us want to get old.

None of us want to lose the people, the things we love.

But their all going to change.

It’s human not to want things to change.

It’s fundamental to the origins of humanity to want things to be the same.

Repeatable.

Established.

Regular.

Predictable.

That way, we all can make plans and not have them ruined by a rainstorm stopping our picnic.

But… shit happens.

So, if you think about it, and it’s obvious not many people do, why do we invest our time, our money, our blood, sweat, and tears into ideas that try to prevent change?

Fear.

Fear is the spider at the center of the web.

Change represents unpredictable outcomes.

What if people are free?

What if people can marry who they want?

What if people can be who they are?

What if people want to be equal?

What if people want to be loved?

All these and more represent a community and the individual to take a chance that change will not affect their picnic.

Yeah, so it was okay to free black people from slavery as long as no one was inconvenienced.

It was all right to give women the right to vote because most women couldn’t be bothered.

It was fair to desegregate schools and communities because we weren’t going to fund those schools and communities after.

My point is that change, for better or worse, will continue to happen, but not as expected.

With change there will always be outcomes that are not predictable.

That’s what change is.

That’s why I’m trying to get the attention of my conservative brothers and sisters and help them put into perspective their fear of change.

When gays got the right to marry, did frogs rain out of the sky?

When blacks got to vote, there were no more white elected officials, right?

When women entered the workforce, no man was ever hired again, correct?

When change happens, will things be different?

Yes, they will be different.

And that’s the beauty of change.

Where once there was a dead, dry seed, once planted, from that seed grows a tree under which the children and the children’s children of the planter will live, love, and know peace.

Change is gonna come…

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

We Help

What are you doing with your life?

There is only one thing we all have to do to fulfill the purpose of living.

You help.

A person is coming through the door you hold it open.

That man needs a meal you feed him.

That girl needs a new school book; you get it for her.

You help.

That woman is grieving; you sit and listen.

That young man needs a job; you hire them.

The old man at the store is lonely; you say hello.

You help.

If you’re not helping, you’re hurting.

If you’re not lifting up, you’re putting down.

If you’re not caring, you’re evil.

Life is about growing out of your comfortable shell and caring for those around you.

What does it take to make the blind see?

What does it take to make the deaf hear?

What does it take to make the heartless love?

The truth?

The truth is nothing.

There is nothing any of us alone can do to make the stubborn self-righteous, selfish person join the human race.

Nothing.

What we can do is join with the living, move forward to that bright community of love, and just in case…

We can keep that door open to freedom from fear.

That someday, in some way, the fearful, selfish person will open their minds and join us.

Until then…

We press forward.

We open doors.

We expand liberty, freedom, and justice for all.

We help.

Not just for those we love.

But also and more importantly, for those we don’t know.

Love has no limit.

The only limit that can be put on love is in our hearts and minds.

Cut loose, be free, and see what is possible when you pursue truth.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

Empathy What Is It Good For?

Empathy What Is It Good For?

I see things normal people don’t.

I feel things normal people don’t.

I hear things normal people don’t.

Because of what I see, feel, and hear, it drove me to end my life.

The world was too much for me. 

I couldn’t take the abuse after living in a world a life of hate for 55 years.

Casual cruelty bolstered with a good dose of hypocrisy.

Talking a good game but never following through what love requires of all of us.

I had mistakenly, it turned out, convinced myself there was no more love.

No more love in the world.

No more love for me.

I was a loser.

No career.

No job.

No money.

No friends.

Everything I pursued failed.

By every measure of our Western society, I was a washout.

I couldn’t understand why people were so uncaringly cruel.

Cruel to each other.

Cruel to the people I love.

Cruel to me.

Stop!

A little voice told me to stop.

Don’t leave yet.

That little voice outside of me asked me to give love one more chance.

I had no more trust left in me.

I didn’t know what was wrong or right anymore.

So I listened.

And listened.

I learned that I wasn’t entirely wrong.

The world doesn’t understand love like I do.

At 55, I was diagnosed as an INFJ empath.

I was correct in being depressed with the world around me.

As Dylan sings, how many ears must one many have before he can hear people cry?

I had heard that song since it first came out.

Nobody was listening.

Nobody.

I pleaded with the sky…

You can’t hear people cry.

You can’t hear me.

What is normal?

Empaths are not normal.

I know now why I’m not norma now.

I see, feel, and hear things the average person doesn’t.

Just like a dog who can see, hear, and smell things people can’t.

You have to ask yourself, does the dog live a better life than you or not?

The dog can hear that tear that falls in the silence of your room.

The dog can see the lonely person sitting awake all night in the darkness.

The dog can smell the fear of life and death.

Dogs and empaths are alike that way.

I’m here to tell you it’s not a good thing to feel the pain of everyone around you.

Empathy what is it good for?

I have since learned to build filters, barriers, boundaries over the past six years.

I listened to that small voice tell me I needed to be what I was born to be.

No longer in pain, but to be free and let the world know it can do better.

To be on guard.

Now while the world sleeps and the dark side of humanity works to take love out of the world.

Outside tied up… that shadow at your door...

I’m the dog barking in the night.

Wake up!

Peace.

DFrey

Beginnings

Life begins when you realize you are not the only person who needs love.

Children know they are the center of the world.

Nothing can tell them differently.

Their wishes, their demands, their worldview places them at the center.

Nothing exists beyond the realm of the child’s mind.

They do not understand a reasonable bedtime.

They can’t subsist on one cookie.

Every want, every whim must be fulfilled ASAP.

The adult, the caretaker, is there to fulfill their prejudiced view of how the world works.

Only life experience will have a chance to break through this cosmic certainty.

The first time they feel hunger, and there’s no food that night.

The first time they see their caretaker cry.

The first time a wish goes unanswered.

Slowly…

Slowly…

Given enough time, this child will grow up and hear other voices besides their own.

The voice of despair.

The voice of fear.

Even, even the voice of hope.

The voice of love.

Every human who has ever lived or shall live goes through this cycle.

But not all come out the other side genuinely alive.

Childhood is a type of shell.

A shell that keeps the mind safe from reality.

Experience like a hammer raps raps raps on that shell, asking each of us to come out and play.

Not everyone can break the shell of childhood.

Forever caught in their own head, they can’t hear other people cry.

They refuse to hear the call for justice.

For freedom.

For hope.

For equality.

For love which reaches its never-ending arms around all.

Society, like a forest, is filled with life.

Some are sprouting, some are growing, some have lived a lifetime, and winter has come.

While others are still in the ground, in their shell, waiting for that drop of water of reality to break their shell and lift them up.

To begin.

Peace

DFrey

Where We Stand

Right and wrong.

Right and left.

Right and doing nothing.

Right, and being alone.

Right is right.

What are the consequences of doing right?

It takes energy to do what is right as much as it takes to do what is wrong.

For the most part, most of us like to stand in the gray area.

That place in-between where we don't have to react.

We don't have to lift a finger.

We don't have to have any anxiety.

We don't have to fear if we are right or wrong.

The silent majority.

We can be left alone.

A truth.

To set a standard and to declare what is right versus what is wrong ultimately will shine the spotlight of scorn and ridicule upon you.

Why?

Do you know the old adage about the crabs in a barrel?

One of the crabs wanted to know what was outside of its world.

What was outside of the barrel that all of the other crabs were trapped in?

There were tales of the great beyond where everything you ever wanted came true.

There were also tales of monsters of dark creatures that would devour you.

This crab decided it was going to crawl out against the advice that it was going to be dangerous as it was admonished by its fellow crabs.

Well, just as the crab started to crawl out, the other crabs grabbed hold of it and pulled it back into the barrel.

Ultimately, they all found themselves on that night's menu.

They made their own worst fears come true.

They did nothing.

Doing what's right makes people angry.

Why?

It forces a spotlight upon their own lives, revealing their apathy.

Their nihilism.

They don't want that hot light upon them to say what is right because they don't want to face the possibility that they might be wrong.

Even in the face of a certitude, what is obviously the right thing to do, a child is sexually attacked, the person obfuscates and pretends they don't actually see.

They don't understand.

To have morality, to stand upon one's own morals is not antithetical to present-day Christian misinterpretation of the biblical passage of not judging others.

All recorded civilizations, societies, have had and a sense of morality.

What is right and what is wrong.

If you couldn't judge, there would be no courts, no one in prison for murder.

Anarchy would rule.

Taking a stand throughout the history of humankind against what is wrong has placed obvious targets upon these individuals who did.

But let's bring it down to everyday living?

The next time you're at dinner with your family and your uncle makes a racist joke, do you call them out on it?

When you are on the bus, and your bag is sitting on the seat next to you, do you pick it up so that the stranger can have a seat?

When you see a cop beating up on a guy, do you call for restraint?

You can see that your congressional district is gerrymandered do you call out your politicians to make it fair for all voters?

You know a neighbor is alone during this time of the virus crisis do you check in with them to see if they need anything?

These are a few examples of doing the right thing in everyday life.

They may be easy for you, difficult for others.

Doing the right thing will always bring about consequences.

For every action, there is a reaction.

Doing the right thing in the face of wrong, doing the right thing ultimately in the face of evil will leave you in an empty space.

Separate from the crowd.

I've personally found myself many times in that lonely space.

Most days, I feel I stand at the edge of an abyss calling out but hearing nothing coming back.

It is a tired world we all live in.

Now more separated because of this health crisis.

The effort to do what is right is neglected by many.

Given lip service by most.

The darkness of the world is taken upon the backs but by a few.

As Mark Twain said, "Wages of doing what is right versus what is wrong is the same."

Most of what we do on this journey called life will never be recognized or appreciated beyond our own recollection of events.

However…

Count me as standing against evil.

Standing against the wicked.

Standing against the corrupt.

A warrior for the light.

Giving comfort to the tired, the lonely, the sick.

For it is only in that blessed light that once shown into darkness, can it release the enslavement of man's mind to the shackles of other people’s tyranny.

We are bound together.

Peace

DFrey

Where Is Love

Oliver Twist in the musical Oliver laments and prays about the whereabouts of love while he's locked in the basement of a funeral parlor where he's an indentured servant.

This scene is no allegory.

There are no hidden meanings here.

He's trapped in a dark world where the light of love refuses to shine for him.

I want to ask the same question, where is love?

A lot of us think we know what it means.

We believe we have it, want it, can express it, know when it's being shown towards us.

But knowing the definition doesn't mean we can actually do it.

I know the definition of a pole-vaulter, but if I attempted an even modest leap, my lack of understanding of its meaning would result in a spectacular YouTube-worthy fail.

I have no experience or success at pole-vaulting.

Love is an ideal that many attempt, but few will be able to stick the landing.

However, you can find a few gold medal winners Mother Teresa, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Lao Tzu…

Strong voices of love are not only in the past.

You can find among all of us strong hearts who can lead a workout class in love.

Love is the hardest emotion to understand with the intellect; it defies logic because it's the language of the soul, the song of the heart.

We're all tone-deaf; it appears in this world to love its melody its lyric.

Like Oliver, we're all locked in a dark world that mistreats us, batters our souls, misshapes our perceptions, ignites anger, walls in hate, whispers lies telling us we're misunderstood, alone, unwanted.

We cannot tell the difference between noise of fear the soft whisper of love.

Be the answer to Oliver's prayer.

Act with love.

Do it today.

Please do it for yourself first.

If you can't forgive yourself, you can't forgive others.

To love the world begins by loving yourself.

Peace.

DFrey

Stronger Together

One day you may find that person you love, and they will love you back.

Stronger together.

That time when you were on top of a ladder, and that friend held tight at the bottom until your work was done.

Stronger together.

When your mother kept you home because you were sick.

Stronger together.

That night when you got a flat tire and called for help.

Stronger together.

One night, it was late, a mother and a father got a call that their son was in an accident.

The nurse couldn't tell them what was wrong until they showed up at the emergency room.

Once they got to the hospital, the nurse could answer their questions.

Their son had been drinking, he had run a red light and struck a utility pole.

No one else was hurt.

The father could have come down hard on his son and told him never to darken his door again.

The mother could have screamed and yelled and demanded why her son could make her life so miserable.

They both could have made the actions of their son about themselves.

However, their son was no longer a boy he was a man.

He bore the responsibility of a man.

Of an adult.

They came to his bedside and told their son that together they'll find the answers.

Together they can weather the storm.

Together they are stronger.

A storm of another kind has found its way into the heart of America.

A storm of the mind.

A dissolution of the conscious.

A thunder of misplaced rage.

A flood of half-truths mixed with a hailstorm of outright lies.

A belief that has been cultivated by activists and opportunists of a kind of American Apartheid.

A division between them and us.

Right and left.

Good and evil.

A propaganda that your absence of economic security is because the other has taken your fair share.

The other is responsible for all your problems.

I'm here to say that's a load of horse manure.

It may grow roses, but it's hard to swallow.

This division, sewed by these opportunists pushes the buttons of the disenfranchised.

You tell a generational factory worker their job is now gone because those union people asked for too many benefits when the truth is the owner of the company whose God is profit moved the company to maximize their board's profit share.

It has been the same damn story for all of human history.

The rich and powerful, the few, continue to pit the poor, the majority, against each other.

Consequently, the majority never hold those responsible for life's misery accountable.

The powerful know they must keep the people segregated, divided, to maintain their hold on the reins of power.

Otherwise, a true democracy might break out…

They know we are stronger together.

Stronger together.

The wind is howling outside.

For that matter, the wind is howling in a lot of homes across America too.

That wind is saying we don't need those people.

That wind says we can do it by ourselves.

That wind which whips up rage, hate, anger.

There can be no peace without honesty.

One day a man took some friends out to go fishing.

While out on that lake, a storm came up.

The people in the boat became afraid.

They started to blame each other for even thinking they could go out into the unknown.

Their fear turned to rage.

Some wanted to turn back, they were afraid of the unknown.

The others wanted to get to the other side of the lake, they were afraid of where they had come from.

Both sides blamed each other for they both believed there was no hope.

They began to fight each other.

They saw the worst in each other.

The storm was going to send them to the bottom of the sea, and it was the other sides fault.

How could we be to blame?

Then the owner of the boat, the adult, told the wind to be silent.

The rage stopped.

The boat owner told his friends, don't you see you're all in the same boat together.

Your fear is our fear.

Your hope is our hope.

Your love is our love.

We are stronger together.

Peace

DFrey

Without Our Permission

Change happens without our permission.

That's a fact of this Universe.

The Universe does not wait for our approval.

You can have an opinion about it, but it doesn't change the facts.

Can you stop the tide from rolling in?

Can you stop your child from growing?

Can you stop the sun from setting?

No, you can't.

I can't either.

Nobody can.

Change is the fundamental nature of life.

We are born, we live a life, and then we die.

Each step along that path, we find the world changes around us as we change.

Some of the changes are welcome.

The look of your child as they master riding a bike.

Watching your daughter's face as she marries the person she loves.

That new job you've worked so long and hard for.

Suddenly is gone.

Gone.

Some changes are not welcome.

Your dog is ill and needs to be put down.

There's no work in your town anymore.

The McRib will no longer be sold.

The biggest unwanted change…

The death of a loved one.

Today, March 24th, 2018 in the streets of America and around the world, a collective shout demanding change was issued.

A choice, a demand that life be preserved versus the right to kill.

Why do we reserve the right to kill in this nation?

Could it be the lagging cancer on our soul of racism?

Fear of the other?

Fear of the stranger?

A new voice was raised today to join the old chorus of the past.

It's beat, it's melody unfamiliar to the ears of an older generation, yet, at its heart, it's driving beat as familiar as that old gospel sung by other marchers for freedom from tyranny.

Change comes without our permission.

You can be part of the solution, or you can step aside.

A better world, free of the fear of gun violence has always been in our hands to make real.

The eyes of a nation have been lifted up by the spirit of their children.

March for our lives.

Peace

DFrey

Lift Them Up

Walking into my favorite coffee spot the other day, the hostess Josseline looked tired. 

"How are you today, Josseline," I asked?

She smiled, "No one ever asks how I'm doing. Thank you."

Lift them up.

Some girls were out in front of the grocery store the other day selling Girl Scout cookies. 

They had their learned lines down asking each person as they went by to please purchase their cookies. 

Many did.

An old woman walked by. 

They asked her if she would buy some of their delicious cookies. 

She said she liked to, but she didn't have extra money. 

One of the girls handed her a box for free.

Lift them up.

This coming Saturday, March 24th, from 10 AM to 2 PM starting at Pershing Square, 582 South Olive Street, Los Angeles, CA,

March For Our Lives is holding a rally and a march.

Everyone is welcome, not just students and teachers affected by the rule of the gun in our land.

Wait!

Listen...?

Did you hear that…?

Do you hear it?

People, a nation, a time when voices filled with fear call out collectively for justice.

A sound heard through the long halls history foretells of a building wave. 

A wave built upon the broken and shattered lives cut short by the tyranny of a few men over the many.

Lift them up.

Why can't some people hear other people crying?

Why can't some people see the suffering people not like them

Why do some people turn their backs when they can help stop injustice?

Fear of change clouds the eye.

Fear of change darkens the heart.

Fear of change binds the hands.

Fear of the stranger resists compassion.

Lift them up.

You can read the writing on the wall.

You can see the summer change to fall and then to winter. 

You can see the tide roll in and out. 

You can witness the sunrise in the East and set in the West.

But can you see the despair in others, not like yourself?

Can you feel what it is like to live in fear of death?

Can we as a people ask everyone to be responsible? 

Everyone.

Is that too much to ask for? 

Is that a bridge too far? 

A shore too distant? 

Are we collectively going to fall into a trap set by profiteers of death?

The profiteers who stoke the fears of the unknown. 

Who whisper horrible intent of races not your own. 

Who raised up Jesus yet tell us that even the man of peace would have a conceal-carry under his robe.

That if everyone carried a gun, we would all be safe?

I tell you that's a lie.

It is a lie made by dark-hearted men to make a profit out of the fearful.

To tell you the truth…

I can tell you there will never be a time in your whole life that you will you ever be safe.

Never.

That is the reality.

The story that many believe is if you live a good life, worship the right god, live in the right neighborhood, drive the right car, marry the right person, go to the right school, get the good job, mind your own business, mow your lawn, keep your house painted, donate to charity, care for your family, that somehow through all these things you will be kept safe by an invisible spirit.

You will not be given anything you cannot bear…

That's a story.

It is not reality.

There are some storms we cannot bear…

Bad things happen to everyone. 

You can't stop it.

But you can with compassion do the thing that we all can recognize is the right thing to do.

You can reach out and take a hand that reaches for help.

You can reach out and hold that person who is afraid.

You can lift them up.

Stand with us on March 24th everywhere in our nation.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Most of all, for life.

Peace

DFrey

Charlottesville, Virginia

illustration by Daniel J. Frey

Peace

DFrey

Again Begin

Did you know I'm an artist?

I drew before I could write and I still draw down onto paper my observations, visions…

I draw upon my life and experience.

Being an asthmatic child and adult.

Of dying when I was seventeen.

I forgot my family and had to be reintroduced to them and the world.

Of being an orderly tending the sick, applying CPR on over 114 people, of caring for the dead.

Finding love, of losing it and finding it again, of the gift of a beautiful son and daughter…

To that end and a new beginning, I have begun a monthly extended graphic novel around the central drive of my life to help make the world better.

To point to an open door where our better angels wait for us all.

Again Begin is a journey to the central problem in the world the human race.

It has been a story I've worked on for the past 40 years.

Personal disasters, failures aside, I have turned over this story many times as I lay myself to sleep each night.

In light of the times, in the light of dim direction, plainly no light at all going on in some heads we give the title leader, I will bring to revelation this tale of science fiction wrapped around an ancient parable to stir our genetic memory.

A new myth…

Thank you, Joseph Campbell.

Below is a page exclusive to this website from issue number one of Again Begin available through all the outlets of ebooks as well as a printed version at Amazon.com

Peace

DFrey