Our Labor

Our labor is to hold the torch of liberty high; our joy is found with one another, united in the purpose of freedom.

Our labor does not stop because the storm we battle with will not relent.

Hatred doesn’t take a day off.

Our labor is to stand in the doorway to halt the foxes from slipping past and robbing us of our future.

Our joy is when that child can look upon their future and wonder What will I be.

Our labor is with selfish souls who would let the world burn.

Our labor is with hate that feeds angry minds bitter meat.

Our labor makes us weary.

Yet our joy is in the certain knowledge that justice is for everyone, including the forgotten and the notorious.

Labor today is the same as it ever was.

The time marked on the calendar says it’s a new century.

Yet this century has all the familiar textures of the millennia that went on before it.

What hasn’t changed is the heart of humanity.

The labor is between those who sleep and those who are awake.

The labor is between the hateful and the joyful.

The labor is between the selfish and the giving.

The joy is in the certain knowledge that love will be victorious.

Love will endure when hate consumes itself.

We rest today from the labor, knowing that the anticipation of victory is the strength, the hope that swings the hammer of justice.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

The Many

The enemy of peace is the middle.

Traditionally, we think the enemy of peace is the left or right.

But to think that way, you have to be either on the left or the right.

You’ve had to make a choice.

You’ve had to participate in life.

However, people who have decided to stand with the left or the right are substantially fewer in number compared to those who sit in the middle.

The tapestry, or better, the quilt blanket, which humanity turns out to be, is mainly constructed of threadbare fabric.

Fabric that just gets the job done and no more.

The bright, sparkly bits, the sequence, the gold and silver fringe, and the rainbow of colors are all at the edges.

Humanity is a majority dull wet blanket.

Humanity doesn’t want to participate in its future.

It doesn’t want to honor its past.

Humanity just wants to exist.

It wants to be left alone.

Period.

Humanity doesn’t want to make choices.

It doesn’t want to know what’s bad, what’s good, what’s new, what’s old.

Humanity doesn’t want to fight evil, hate, anger, prejudice, racism, or fascism.

Humanity, the many, couldn't care less about freedom, justice, and truth.

The many.

That is the many who do not care until it kicks them in their ass.

When they personally have lost their jobs, their orgasm, their favorite TV show, their freedom.

Then the many care.

That’s the reason why Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto lamented the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when he said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

It has been understood for thousands of years, by some of us, that humanity, at its core, is a dumb, sleeping giant, content with knowing nothing and doing nothing.

But if made angry, the sleeping giant will awaken and smash everything, including both the good and the bad.

That’s what we are up against: those warriors of the light, wanting a better world for all.

The right, the fascists, the nihilists woke the sleeping giant, gave the giant a red hat, and promised it could go back to sleep once America was great again.

The giant with the red hat is now confused.

The giant with the red hat was made a promise that it could feed on the blood of Democrats.

But the boy who gave them their red hats has told them, “Never mind, it was all a dream.”

All a dream…

The giant with the red hat is still angry.

The giant with the red hat still wants the blood it was promised.

What will the giant with the red hat, the many, do now?

Go back to sleep?

Or smash?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Heart Of Darkness

Where does discrimination come from?

Why do we allow people to suffer?

What is the belief that allows us to kill?

When was the last time you admitted you were wrong?

Where was the last place you cried?

Why can't our leaders hear people ask for their freedom?

What will people say about you behind your back?

When will racism end?

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically 

bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that 

the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood 

can never become a reality." – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The other day, a man woke up.

He may have had a plan for how that day might have wound up, but…

We can all recognize that the outcome was not what he intended.

Like so many people before him, fate chooses us without asking.

George Floyd woke that day and did not know he would be dead before sunset.

George's life, like so many of ours, is lived day by day.

Yes, we have an idea of where we want to go, but getting there remains hidden.

Only a few superficial people ever believe they are important.

None of us wakes up and says I'm the best.

Well, almost none of us.

No, we each try to get a piece of happiness each day.

Some days, it works out; others, it doesn't.

George Floyd was murdered by the police.

The police woke that day and didn't know they were going to start a fire that would burn around our collective consciousness.

They didn't know that their anger, their regrets, and prejudice would murder a man.

There's never been any evidence that hateful, bigoted racists ever killed anyone, right?

I can't breathe!

I can't breathe!

I can't breathe rings in those policemen's ears.

I can't breathe rings in the streets of America.

I can't breathe rings in the hearts of people across the world.

Dr. King was right.

The dark night would not hold its power over the hearts of humanity forever.

If there is a night, there will be a dawn.

Those who were faithful to pursue justice for all carried the light of truth before us.

The truth is that racism will never end.

However, the arbiter of racism is justice equally applied to all.

We have a lot of old rules in this Republic.

Rules meant to keep one People in power.

Rules written can be unwritten by better ideas.

People in the street march towards that brotherhood of man.

George Floyd blew a trumpet blast and brought down the walls.

Heroes are not created; they happen.

Let freedom ring in the morning's holy light.

As George's six-year-old daughter said, "Daddy changed the world."

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby