Change Happens

Standing in the doorway of the schoolhouse.

Putting up a fence between countries.

Between neighbors.

Going to war.

Stopping people from voting.

From living free of violence.

As soon as you stop progress and implement conservative ideals, you actually put into motion a cascade for change.

The conservative mind has never grasped this fact.

For every action, there is a reaction.

Stopping change will have the exact opposite of the initial intent.

No part of this universe doesn't operate around the physical reality of change.

Everything is cooling down.

Eventually, everything in our universe will reach the temperature of absolute zero.

Minus 273 degrees Celsius, or for those who resist change, minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's the temperature at which atoms no longer vibrate.

The temperature of the universe when it is absolutely dead inside.

Human beings have the unique ability to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time.

I love my mother, but I hate what she does.

I love eating ice cream; I'm lactose intolerant.

Human beings can appear alive and active, yet inside they are dead.

Their hearts, their minds have reached absolute zero.

They no longer move.

They stay where their God has intended.

Their God can be ancient in its adherence to resist change or new.

The old Gods of prejudice, racism, elitism, religion, and nationalism all preach and inoculate their believers to the ideal of not changing.

Keeping the social order dictated and carved in stone by their founding fathers.

Given the benefit of the doubt, the White man is on top of the pyramid and deserves a free lunch while everyone else below him pays cash.

The human irony.

There is real irony here.

The reality is that those who stand in the public space and declare there will be no more change forever… 

They have fired the first shot, the starting pistol, that will bring about the change they so desperately want to prevent.

Like a dam in a river, the water behind the blockage begins to build.

Through age and poor construction, the dam, no matter how large, how thick, how deep, cannot withstand the pressure of change that builds behind it.

You can't stop the merry-go-round of life.

Life will find a way.

Life will pour over that dam standing in the doorway of progress.

And what is this progress that change in our society is pushing for?

John Lennon said it… 

Imagine no heaven, no countries, nothing to kill or die for, no religion, no possessions, no greed, no hunger, no hell.

Just earth below and sky above.

A brotherhood of man where we all live in peace, sharing the world and this universe together.

As one people in tune with the true nature of life.

Change happens.

I know I'm not the only one who knows this.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

What Is Myth?

Myth is a corruption of truth.

Simply, I use the term 'myth' to describe lies that we believe, which give us comfort from reality.

Need it put more plainly?

A myth is a fairy tale we believe is true.

With the added complexity that our fairytale is true and everyone else's fairytale is a lie.

Myth is a large umbrella that shelters many a human belief.

Under the umbrella of myth, you will find, yes, all the religions of the world.

Both past and present.

But you will also find under that shelter of self-delusion prejudice.

You will find racism, entitlement, apartheid, segregation, urban legend, intellectualism, science deniers, liberals, conservatives, family, and friends all seeking shelter under the umbrella of myth.

You will even find yourself.

The umbrella of myth is a human invention.

It was not given to us mystically.

We created it for a specific reason.

Fear.

Fear of the unknown.

Myth gives us a reason why bad things happen.

Myth gives us control over things we can't control.

Myth tries to remove the random nature of the universe.

Our greatest fear is death.

Consequently, the greatest stories we ever made up to tell ourselves are those stories about life after death.

Those stories give us comfort from the inevitable termination of our existence.

If we believe in them, we get a coupon to "live after we die for free."

It's obvious why we created such stories.

Fear is the motivation behind all myths.

An example is the fear of the stranger, which motivates racism.

The endless storytelling occurs worldwide and in our homes, businesses, and places of worship.

Those people are not like us; they don't believe like we do, we're better.

There is a common theme underlying all the fear that shelters under the umbrella of myth.

That common theme is self.

Selfishness.

I am good, everyone else is bad, I deserve everything I want, and I don't care who I harm to get what belongs to me.

Selfishness.

Selfishness shelters under the belief that it is good to sacrifice the lives and well-being of the other to keep intact the myth.

At all costs.

The sacrifice of family, friends, happiness, but most of all truth, truth is the first and most important thing to destroy to maintain our personal delusions.

Fear will always be with us.

There is only one power in this universe that can overcome it.

Love.

Love lifts the chokehold of fear so we can see the world as it is and not through our personal expectations.

Love will allow you to see the need in the world, hear the cry for peace, and feel the urgency of now.

Love will let you understand we only get one chance at life.

That's why every life is essential.

Love makes clear that today is the day we do right, not after we're dead.

Love is the only power that can drive back the night terrors of fear and allows us to live together as we should, not as we imagine.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

The Deep

What do you see?

What do you know?

What do you believe?

The surface of the ocean tells you nothing about what takes place below.

When you live on the surface, the tides are out of your control.

The waters below hide things moving there.

The sun burns to the horizon.

The gulls gossip with each other.

Above the seas, life there has no contact with what moves below.

Deep water.

To those who live deep under the surface, what takes place up top has nothing to do with their reality.

No matter how much the winds of change may blow up top, the people of the deep are not moved.

They are insulated from the critique of weather.

Life below is steady.

Predictable.

Below the seas, life there has no contact with what moves the above.

What do you see?

What do you know?

What do you believe?

The people on both sides have chained themselves to an ideology that says they are special.

They are the chosen.

They will rule over their enemies in life and after death.

They are in love with their conflict.

It fills them with purpose.

It feeds their prejudice.

And they are hungry.

How do you find a compromise between two opposing people who believe the total destruction of their opposition is required so they may live?

The thousands of children on both sides that have died have not moved them.

The destruction of their community on both sides has not moved them.

The thousands upon thousands who have died on both sides are ignored.

Only the point of contact between the two sides of the conflict has ever been addressed.

The window dressings, the easily understood issues, the things that can be whined about without touching the sea monster at the bottom of the ocean or the dragon circling in the sky.

What aspect of this conflict remains unaddressed?

What is it in the deep waters and in the sky that brings fear to the peacemakers?

Something so profound that, if talked about, would shake the foundations of society?

That which shall not be named.

God.

Religion and its structure are at the core of the conflict.

Either one is right, the other is wrong, or both sides are wrong.

And there's the rub.

The three religions of the West all claim the same spot on earth as theirs and theirs alone.

There has never been any room for compromise within these three groups.

King of the hill or ruler of nothing.

Like blind fish and birds, the faithful follow the voices of hate they were born into.

There can be no compromise with those who oppose us as rulers of humanity.

It's written in the holy books of all three faiths.

The problem is now defined, so what do we do?

We send a message of hope.

We let the people of the deep know that life is possible on the land.

We tell the people of the land that life is possible in the deep.

It's a different life than what they have known, but it is life.

We must ask them as many times as needed to understand we share this world with them.

The people on the land and the people of the deep can live together.

There can be peace only if those who live in the deep want it as much as those on the land.

Otherwise, the oceans will roll, and the sky will thunder.

The storm will continue.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Rescue

You can't save a drowning person if they believe they can swim.

A person's confidence in their belief provides protection from self-doubt.

The enemy of any belief is doubt.

This is why belief is fortified through a structure of rituals.

You daily repeat a ritual to remind yourself of your commitment to your belief.

Any doubt means you have slipped up.

You left the belief; the belief did not leave you.

A daily affirmation, a daily repeating of sacred words, enshrines the structure of belief in your daily ritual.

Consequently, generally speaking, most beliefs do not lose any followers.

They live, worship, and believe within the protection of like-minded practitioners.

Racism is a belief.

Racism is a belief.

People live, worship, and believe alongside their fellow practitioners that the white race is solely responsible for the history of this world.

Racism does not lose many followers.

Racists use words of discrimination against the race, gender, and sexual orientation that they know are not as important as they are.

The believers in white apartheid have no doubt in their correctness.

Their faith has been given to them by their Bible, which is the word of God.

God created Adam, and he was white.

Moses white.

Jesus white.

The devil... Black.

Racists' belief tells them that the Bible is the story of the white race fighting against the forces of evil led by dark-skinned people.

They have no doubt.

You can't save a racist when they know that white equals power.

There is no doubt.

For centuries upon centuries, racism has been fed and grown in wealthy homes and poor.

It is a structure that gives comfort against the harsh realities of life.

Some of us liberals believe we can rescue the racist.

But like a person drowning in a river, if the lifeguard is not careful, they too will be pulled down to the bottom and die.

Racists can't hear us call them back to shore.

Racists can't see that too many people have died.

Racists feel it in their hearts and minds that they are right and we are wrong.

Half this country voted for racism in November of 2020.

Half this country voted for the protection of the Confederacy.

Half this country voted for the separation of immigrant children from their asylum-seeking families.

Half of this country voted for discrimination against women and gays.

They don't want to be rescued because the water they're swimming in is fine.

They see no danger.

They don't see the dark water rising.

They don't feel the riptide pulling them down.

You can't tell a person they're wrong when they believe they are right.

Racism is a belief.

These senators and congresspeople are defending the white power structure in America.

They are willing to burn the Constitution to keep that structure in place.

This is what we who believe in the Constitution's heart are fighting against.

We genuinely believe in the words that all people are created equal.

So what do we do?

We listen to wise words on how to travel together to the beloved community.

We resist evil.

We make friends across the divide.

We defeat injustice that makes victims of both the target and the actor.

We suffer hate with dignity and grace.

We love, not hate.

We know that the universe bends towards justice every time.

Every time.

That's what we will do.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Masks of Hate

Slave Masters.

The Church.

The Klan.

The Anarchists.

The Nihilists.

The Fascists.

The Neo-Nazis.

The Skinheads.

The White Supremacist.

The Proud Boys.

The Boogaloo.

Pepe the Frog.

Q-Anon.

The history of the masks of hate.

The masks of hate that people wear.

People, yes, people wear these masks for a reason they believe in.

People wear masks of hate to cover their fear.

A fear planted into their spirits by people they trusted.

A fear of a world they do not want to see come into existence.

People fear a world where everyone is equal.

Because in an authentic sense of fear, equality means personal responsibility.

If everyone is equal, there is no one to blame when things go wrong except for yourself.

When life doesn't turn out the way you expect it, who is to blame?

Whole societies, whole industries, and whole religions base their existence on blaming the other.

The other guy, the other stranger, the other foreigner, the other unrighteous asshole.

Scapegoats.

A person, a people, to blame for why we don't have nice things.

I certainly can't be to blame because God is on my side.

I'm not the asshole.

My friends believe the same way; we can't be wrong.

My parents wouldn't lie to me.

Masks of hate.

And who maintains these masks of hate?

Who has built empires of wealth on the destruction caused by these masks?

People with wealth and power.

Ever try to take a bone away from a hungry dog?

A hungry dog will bite your hand.

It will let you die so it can have just one last chew on its bone.

It won't listen to reason.

Its only concern is that the bone belongs to it.

The bone is believed to be the dog's only means of survival.

If the dog hasn't learned how to share, trying to take a bone away from it will bloody your hand.

People wear all kinds of masks.

The mask of hate covers the fear of reprisal.

That inevitable future that is coming, we can all see it now.

A brotherhood of man where blacks and whites live together.

They judge each other by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

People have a fear of this future becoming real.

They imagine the same horrors that they allowed to happen to black and brown people to be reciprocated.

They are fighting for a false way of life.

Just like that dog fighting for that last piece of gristle on a bone.

So, as we prepare to vote out the White House's chief hater and creep, keep in mind the prize.

A world where children are no longer taught to wear masks.

A world where children can be who they are.

Free, living in truth and justice for all.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fringe

Carpets.

Carpets have a fringe.

A fancy decorative edge.

A flash, a glint there to catch the eye.

The broad weave of the carpet, the dull, boring part in the middle, is usually not as attractive as the golden edge.

The center of the carpet is where you stand.

The fringe has an initial appeal.

Look what I have bought into.

But it soon gets old.

You walk into your room, and the fringe trips you up.

What was once a feature is now a distraction.

It catches the dirt.

You can't get it clean.

Its only purpose was to draw attention.

Maybe I spent too much?

The broad weave of the carpet does the real work.

It keeps your feet warm when you walk across the hard, cold floor.

The fringe can't do that.

Now, the fringe has tripped you up once too often.

It's time to trim the fringe back.

Maybe cut it off entirely.

Once free of the fringe, your carpet has a new life.

It no longer serves two purposes.

It can fulfill the reason why you bought it in the first place.

It can do the real work.

Fringe.

Political movements.

Movements have their fancy edges also.

They throw out flashy objects on social media to draw attention.

They stir the pot and get people talking.

But do they put feet into motion?

When the world is cold and hard, are they there to give comfort and compassion?

Or do they only think of themselves?

Do they only think about how much money and power they can pile up?

Often, the political fringe will trip up a given society.

It will cause the self-destruction of the individual.

The political and social fringe can draw attention, but when it comes down to doing the real work, they trip up the body politic.

Fringes, political, and social fringes are out only for themselves.

Like the social media poster who sets out a sympathy trap, they bait for clicks only to increase their following.

They're not there for the children.

They're not there for the dogs and cats.

They're not there for the poor.

They're not there for the person who has done their time and needs a job.

They're not there for those who have lost the people they love through addiction.

They're not there to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give comfort to those who despair.

No.

No, they are there only for themselves.

Right or left self-interest does not discriminate who they ask for money.

On the contrary, self-interest is an equal opportunist parasite willing to take advantage of the compassionate as well as the racist.

It's not just those who want to save the turtles that get taken advantage of.

The hardcore racist gets taken advantage of, too.

People like the President tell them things that they have long believed to be true about non-white races.

He makes a pact with them that only he can change the movement of time and restore the glorious White past.

They want to believe in their racist Santa Claus and will follow him over a cliff to their own economic and social doom, only to make it all come true.

The fringe.

However, remember that the fringe is not the broad weave of American society.

The heart of America is where the real work is done.

The fringe, all fringe, wants you and me to believe they are there for us, but they are not.

The pitchman who wants to sell you the greatest frying pan ever made will not be there to comfort you when your job goes away.

He won't be there when you can't pay for the medicine you need.

He won't hang with you at the time of your despair.

He'll still want that payment of $19.99 each month.

Our attention should be on the broad weave of our Republic.

Let the voices of intolerance, racism, and hate be so much fringe.

Like a crow at the top of a tree that squawks, don't let it distract from our true purpose.

Our purpose is to give warmth and compassion to each other in this cold, hard world.

To give a place for each of us to stand upon the earth.

To realize each one of us our truth, our purpose, and to reach for and obtain that purpose.

We are all here to embrace, not pull apart.

We are here to bring people together, not separate them.

We are here to love, not to hate.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Rules

Signs.

No Fishing.

Don't Walk.

Stop.

Yield.

Bio Hazard.

Caution.

Yield.

Do not kill.

What is your reaction to rules?

Do you cherry-pick what you believe applies to you?

I'm in a hurry; the speed limit doesn't apply to me; I have an appointment.

I'm late.

You're in my way.

Why are those rules there anyway?

If someone stops you on the street and asks you for directions, do you spit in their face?

What are rules good for?

Many of us perceive rules as restricting us.

Laws restrict our freedom.

Buckle up.

The seatbelt is uncomfortable.

Don't text and drive.

I have to make that call, or they won't like me.

The misconception about laws, about rules, about signs, is that they restrict you.

Somebody put up that sign to stick it to me.

I'll do what I want when I want to whom I want.

Nobody can tell me no.

Nobody knows what I've been through.

Laws are there not to restrict just you.

Rules were not created to cramp just your desires.

Rules of behavior are not in place as a form of punishment.

Laws are there to protect you from casual disregard and violence.

The biggest rule of all: Do not kill.

It's there to protect you from being killed.

It's laying down a moral line in the sand that says all life is precious.

This is the only experience that we will ever be guaranteed to have in the life we live now.

No one has a right to that life except the person living it.

Your belief stops at the point of your nose.

That moral law, do not kill, is saying not just to you but to that other person who you made angry in line at the store, you cut them off because you were in a hurry, that they do not have the right to take vengeance on you and take your life.

Because you were being an asshole, shitting everywhere you went.

That person who is reckless and texts and drives just like you in the car next to you, that restriction is there, so they don't t-bone you and cripple you for life.

The 'Don't Walk' sign is there to prevent you from ruining someone else's life by blindly ignoring your own self-interest and stepping off the curb into oncoming traffic.

They run you down in the crosswalk because you deserve to die.

After all, you were in their way... don't you know how important they are as compared to you?

Society has rules for a reason, and that reason is to make life better for everyone.

Everyone.

Rules are not meant to deprive you of your freedom or your choice.

Rules are there to protect you.

It's stopping other people from harming you.

It's about saving you.

To keep us all safe.

It's not just about you.

It's about all of us.

We, the People.

Laws provide a foundation of protection from the misdeeds of others.

It's the grease in the machinery.

Without that grease, the gears of life will grind and tear us all apart.

Our society would implode, and that wouldn't be good for anyone except the scavengers.

The vultures.

The Nihilists.

Yesterday, up in the air in North Carolina, scavengers were circling.

The smell of racism was evident in the air.

The President, who has been put in charge of our Republic, encouraged the buzzards to partake of the rot he served them.

Since his campaign, he has fed a steady diet of the red meat of racism to the bigots among us.

The assembled crowd was confident in their jeers that this nation was not founded upon the principle of freedom and justice for all but only for the White race.

That principle?

From many one.

The wound that has hollowed out the American heart.

The wound which has never been cleaned since the Civil War.

We, as a nation, applied a temporary bandage and hoped that the gangrene of racism would somehow cure itself.

Here we are today, in the first half of the 21st century, grappling with a law established in 1776.

Freedom, justice, and the right to happiness for all.

That bandage that covers the rot of racism must be ripped away so that the light of justice for all mankind can shine upon that wound and heal it once and for all.

How long are we going to ignore our own stink?

How long does it take for a people to understand that freedom is for all?

Black, brown, white, men, women, children, straight, gay, from many, one rule.

Freedom means, in this great American experiment, the capacity to extend love beyond self to the person I don't know, in recognition that they, too, are human and will extend that same love back to me.

The grease.

The sign.

The law.

The rule.

Through love, all things are possible.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Not Me

When I see an elderly woman stumble and fall.

When I see a man standing on the corner, lost.

When I see a girl disobey the traffic laws.

When I see a boy take a hoodie from the store.

I say not me.

When I hear the angry voice of a man who has lost his job.

When I hear a young person's song, it beats my ears.

When I hear the cry of another woman's child.

When I hear the tenor of despair because of lost love.

I say not me.

When I feel the desperate pleas for justice.

When I feel the passion of anger against violence.

When I feel the burning rage of neglect.

When I feel the fear of those who hate.

I say not me.

Not me?

None of us is without fault.

We committed our faults freely.

Our faults can define us and how we conduct our lives to the end.

Our faults can drive us to persecute or towards an awakening.

Our faults can blind us or open our eyes.

Our faults can deafen our compassion or open our hearts and minds wide.

None of us is without fault.

We all share the responsibility for our society and our community.

Through neglect, we've allowed the shallow, the petty, and the self-interested to dominate our social discourse, our Republic.

Our government and our law enforcement leadership are so corrupted by their own vice that they are unwilling or unable to prosecute crimes committed against our society.

Money launderers, sex traffickers, pedophiles, tax frauds, and sexual predators, as long as they serve a political party, are exempt from justice.

Obvious crimes committed by officials of this government along our borders go uninvestigated and are not stopped, as private enterprise profits off the imprisonment of children and adults.

What has happened to the leadership of this nation, I ask?

What is it that these guardians of vice are protecting?

Are we to believe, as I have stated, that they are all, every last one of them, so corrupted by their vices that not one of them can hold a jury over any of these apparent crimes?

Their fellow thieves, rapists, murderers.

If it's not their vices, what else can prevent apparently good people from standing for justice and bringing the criminal to trial?

Is the can of worms, the Pandora's Box of corruption, so great that every last official is awash in a quagmire of their own muck?

They can't break free and are resigned to the fact that nothing can be done, so they do nothing?

Shame only on those humans who can still feel it.

Apparently, many people no longer understand the meaning of love.

The definition has been lost.

The definition is that your reputation and how you will be remembered are built upon how you treat other people.

For evil or good.

Of course, many don't care how they are remembered and don't give a shit about the consequences of their actions.

Yet here we find our nation, the U.S.A's Gold Standard is now to grovel and fetch for the carnal pleasure of hate?

Is that where our society has planted its flag here in the 21st Century?

Have the dreams of a nation of a people been so torn and discarded that even a simple point of justice that we, our American society, don't tolerate child rapists is now too difficult for us to prosecute?

The apparent moral bankruptcy of our two political powers, my conservative brothers and sisters standing for power at any cost, and my liberal brothers and sisters sitting spineless, afraid to rock the boat, is overwhelming.

I feel rage.

I understand the neglect of spirit.

Yet...

I hear the cry of pain of another woman's child.

I see the man lost because of fear.

I taste the fear of change.

I stand.

I shout and fight against the silence.

I will never be silent.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Challenge The Impossible

Can a single drop of rain wear down a mountain?

Will a grain of sand stop a flood?

Does a single battle win a war?

Do you only have to brush your teeth once in your lifetime?

How about painting your house just once during its life?

Will you own only one pair of shoes?

One pair of pants?

One pair of socks?

One love?

Impossible…

How long does it take for some people to be free?

How long will it be until some people stop believing they have a right to kill?

When will the day arrive when tyrants in the world, in your neighborhood, and in your home be stopped from destroying lives?

What hour will it be when a person can walk in their community free of fear?

How much time does it take to heal the broken?

To bring hope to the hopeless?

To love the loveless?

To break the illusion?

To care?

Impossible?

If you are reading this, you are in a war that has been going on since humans first gathered together.

Welcome to the battle.

As long as we are still human, this war will continue indefinitely into the future.

It is a war between those who hate and those who love.

It is a conflict that will have no end.

It is what humans, such as Gandhi, Malcolm, Sakharov, Mandela, Malala, Orwell, Keller, and King, called the struggle.

The struggle.

The impossible struggle will not be over in a day.

Or a week.

Or a year.

Or a lifetime.

Or solved by one candidate.

One leader.

One follower.

The impossible struggle.

It is the act itself, the struggle against impossible odds, where victory is achieved by love.

Evil cannot win unless good does nothing.

Brotherhood is a relationship.

And just like any relationship, effective communication is essential.

You need to give flowers.

You need to share meals.

You need to participate in the good times and be there in the times of grief.

Dropping a coin in a charity bucket doesn't pay for your seat on the Freedom Train.

The struggle is a daily grind for those who follow the light of love.

You get up each day and struggle.

You go through your day and struggle.

You go to bed and rest your head upon the struggle, only to get up the next day to do it again.

The haters will not stop hating.

Neither will love stop loving.

Our strength is not in some decisive battle that will win the war against man's self-hate.

No, our strength is like that in a single drop of rain.

That single drop joins with other drops to form fellowships, communities, and organizations.

Those drops turn into a river.

A river that cuts its way through the mountain of fear and hate.

It broadens and picks up those in lifeboats.

It rescues those who are adrift in the waters.

It rushes past the obstacles to man's own folly and ignorance and soon joins up with the sea.

The dark, brooding mountains of hate and regret left behind.

That drop of rain and countless others have formed a sea of sparkling light and love.

A place where you and I can rest on the shore of a brotherhood of man.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

After the Tears

The unexpected shock.

The eyes strain to see life.

The heart leaps into the throat.

After the tears…

An old photo of a happy day.

The hand of a baby daughter in yours.

Eyes that look up and see you for what you are.

After the tears…

Death will kill all you love.

Death makes you run away with all that you love.

Death haunts your every step towards freedom's precious light.

After the tears…

With the flood all around.

With your baby holding tight to daddy's strength.

With all you have, it wasn't enough.

After the tears…

No one heard.

No one saw.

No one cared.

After the tears…

After the tears come the rolling thunder of justice.

A people should not tolerate the conditions of physical and a type of mental enslavement.

In our nation, minds and hearts are captured by an ideology that allows mothers, fathers, and their children to die in dark waters at a nation's doorstep; it is not a nation dedicated to life.

It is not a community.

It is a society that has lost its purpose.

A sickness that has been allowed to fester way beyond its expiration date.

This nation we live in has always understood what the right thing to do is.

Even other nations have been able to read our credo and have understood that Liberty, with her torch held high, is there to welcome the weak, the fearful, those without hope, the tired, the sick, the forgotten.

The credo to love the stranger.

This nation we live in has forgotten its credo.

This nation has forsaken its honor.

This nation has abandoned human decency and compassion in favor of a short-lived political power.

Our nation's mind is set against itself.

Through the roar of political lions, through the ripping apart of safety in neighborhoods, through callous disregard, lives are lost because it serves the ideal of divine retribution.

They deserve what they get because they are not like me. 

Because they are not like me…

Not like me…

That's right.

That is not like us.

That is not the American ideal.

After the tears…

You don't have to be an empath to know that a baby girl clinging to her daddy's back who drowns with him as he sought freedom is wrong.

It's evil.

It's an evil perpetrated by men and women in power in our nation.

We allowed them to have power at our discretion.

Not some mythical monster.

Not some alien from another planet.

Men and women, humans who cannot see the tears of the individual, only the inside of their closed hearts.

It stops.

It stops now.

It stops today.

We know what the correct answer is.

We've all learned it once upon a time in America.

The idea of Love came into the world and immediately set heart against heart.

Those who follow love cannot also support blind human hate.

True Love will separate a man from a woman.

True Love will divide the parent from the child.

True Love will demand that a nation do the right thing every time.

Every time!

Love asks more of us each and every day till the day we pass from the Earth.

A nation that practices love doesn't allow babies crying for a crust of bread to die.

Stones of hate are not passed out to feed the hungry in a nation that proclaims it believes in the Golden Rule.

Each and every death of anyone in our nation's custody and those seeking refuge is further evidence of the cancer on America's soul.

I'll keep saying it, I'll keep asking it, I'll keep demanding it, I'll keep standing.

I'll never be silent…

After the tears will come the rolling thunder of justice.

Either you get yourself straight, or the world will get busy on your ass.

After the tears…

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

A Tree

It is understandable why you can't hear the song of a tree.

What is not understandable is why you can't hear the pain you create.

We can all lose our connections.

Connections to the world around us, our community, to our family and friends, to ourselves.

Regret.

Regret for our actions reminds us that we have harmed someone we care about.

We don't want to be the "bad" person.

The person who acts and doesn't care who they harm.

Especially our friends and family.

Where do we draw the line between those we include in our group and those we exclude?

On a playground, children make fun of how a classmate is dressed.

Maybe they came to school that day in their pajamas.

Adolescents believe that becoming an adult is about doing adult things.

If they believe that a person over there hasn't consumed alcohol, hasn't smoked, hasn't had sex, they become the judge, jury, and executioner, condemning that person as an outcast.

A loser.

Most adults don't move far from their own adolescent brains.

A parallel example is How well do you draw?

Most of us stopped drawing sometime as we entered high school.

If you picked up a pencil and were asked to draw a cow, you would render at the very same level as when you last attempted to draw.

However, drawing, like any other skill, has to be exercised to keep in shape.

If you practiced your art for a few weeks, you would improve.

We humans can adapt.

We are not relegated to staying in a self-imposed past.

We can grow.

Growth can only begin once you love yourself.

The foundation.

First, we all need to forgive ourselves.

We need to break the chain of our own making that constrains our true selves.

A universal chain to break is racism.

Most aspects of racism are learned.

The roots are passed down genetically like cancer; its darkness stops the growth of the individual.

Racism stops the growth of the community.

But this is nothing new.

Racists are not ignorant of which side of the line they stand on.

They like where they are at.

They know they don't like you.

Every aspect of their lives informs them, from their community to the God they worship, that they are doing the right thing.

So, how are you going to convince them otherwise?

Do you think telling them they need to grow will change their minds?

Do you think asking them to quiet their minds and listen to the song of trees will allow them to feel regret?

…

…

Ain't going to happen, folks.

Ain't going to happen that way, for sure.

It's like standing out before a mountain and trying to call it down with your voice.

Humans don't work that way.

You're not going to convince a racially motivated person to vote for you because you say change is right for them.

Give the other side a chance.

Ain't going to happen.

The people who support the President are not concerned with who they harm.

We are not part of their group, part of their America.

We aren't even human beings in their eyes.

They don't want to come together.

They don't want to move to the city.

They don't want to be told they are wrong.

They would rather burn down the forest than allow for the possibility that they could be wrong.

They can't hear us.

They really honestly can't hear us…

What do we do?

What can we do?

We grow…

We grow ourselves.

We grow and become bigger and stronger than hate.

We grow our community one day, one person at a time.

We grow our organizations, we reach for our brothers and sisters, and we encourage those who are reluctant to get involved.

We grow by standing together, holding to the truth, and the fair application of justice for all.

We grow a smile

A smile that's more powerful and does more good than any rhetoric could do.

We demonstrate through the actions of our lives and our community that we are happy.

We are a happy bunch.

We grow…

Happy to have a family of every race, color, and gender, young and old.

The seed that casts itself upon the hard ground will never grow.

Hardened hearts…

Hardened ears…

Will never know the joy of that first green burst of a new life.

Time wears away the mountain…

But nothing in this universe will break a racists belief.

Regret will whisper into the hardened ears as they witness the happiness they refused to join.

From the hard, lonely places of the world, new ears will grow.

They will ask…

What is that sound?

We will answer…

Love.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

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, and 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'd 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 soul.

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 White 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 shit.

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

This division, sewn 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 investor'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 and 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 that whips up rage, hate, anger.

There can be no peace without honesty.

One day, a man took some friends fishing.

While out on that lake, a storm came up.

The people in the boat became afraid.

They began to blame each other for even considering they could venture 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 because 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 side's fault.

How could we be to blame, "Aren't we better sailors than them?"

Then, the boat's owner, the adult at the wheel, 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

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Grounded

Our President is a boil on humanity's neck, but he's not the only one.

As the world becomes smaller with information, both real and false can be had in an instant.

The veil that was the American dream has been lifted.

It is not a pretty picture.

Like the reveal of Dorian Gray's portrait, all of the hatred, the crime, the bigotry, and the injustice have left us with a gruesome portrayal of what America has been hiding from.

Through our own personal experience, all of us, no matter where we come from, try to put our best face forward.

Even though we may have a load in our pants, most of us, most of the time, want to be perceived as good people.

However, if we were perfect, why is there still fraud?

Racism?

Rape?

Child molestation?

Murder?

Somebody is committing these crimes against humanity.

The lifting of the veil that had previously covered the American way of life is only the most recent curtain-raising in history.

This underbelly of our society has been there since before the Pilgrims landed.

This is a significant point to understand.

We all like to believe in a good story.

There are many good stories at the heart of any society.

The core story that founded this nation in 1776 was that all men are born free.

He has always been free.

Anyone, including any organization that includes governments and religions, who tries to abridge that natural order, this inalienable right, is a tyrant.

They who oppose this Natural Freedom are tyrants.

Broadly defined, it is referred to as the tyranny of men.

These individuals and organizations are not friends of humanity; they oppose freedom.

Yet even though there have been those who hate others' freedom and will burn and kill to prevent those freedoms, these people are also a part of the fabric of humanity.

The threads of humanity are made of many fibers.

Most are common.

Some shine brilliantly.

While sadly, many are dull.

And some threads are just plain evil.

But all of them are part of the quilt of humanity.

Our nation was founded upon the idea of freedom, remember?

A bold proposition, given the history of the world.

Could people reconcile the social and ideological war that has been going on between those who believe in freedom and those who do not?

All of the previous institutions of the world, no matter the people or the region, did not wholly believe in the innate freedom of man.

The power of institutions of governments of religions is to control and to segregate.

Freedom is only granted at the price of membership and is reserved for those within the organization's power structure.

The American experiment aims to determine if enough people can overcome their past and their myths and embrace the concept of freedom for all.

Could all the threads come together and form a nation?

Could they drop their racism?

Could they drop their segregation?

Could they drop their story?

Could they drop their hate?

And pick up hope?

From the inception of that proposition of freedom for all, and including to this very hour, America and Americans have been at odds with their history and traditions.

And for those that have been at odds, those that feed and prosper from the old beliefs of segregation, division, hate, and racism, they have been looking for their personal savior to come and destroy their enemies and set them up as Kings of the Earth.

Their prayers were answered when Trump ascended to the Presidency.

Those racists knew a great day had arrived.

This President would usher in a new world.

This President and his followers believe they are the beginning of a new American brand of White Apartheid.

Make no mistake about it; the fear of a future Brown America by many Americans is genuine.

They see the demographic shift, and they are terrified.

Like dogs under the table being fed scraps of meat, people like the current President nurture the fear that white people are doomed as a race.

Don't start; nothing won't be nothing.

Right now, right today, we are at the bookend of the story started by European greed.

If the Aristocracy of Europe didn't want to lose their White identity, they should have stayed home.

It's ironic, and I understand very few actually get irony, but here goes…

It's ironic because the European Aristocracy believed that the White race was dominant.

Their arrogance allowed them to freely explore the world and claim it as their own, with little regard for the people they encountered along the way.

Those tens of millions of more people…

It turns out that, numbers-wise, the White population is a racial minority.

Fact.

It's also been perplexing to me how a minority group gained control of a majority, and that majority didn't conclusively tell this minority to sit down and stop rocking the boat.

But that's a digression.

Another discussion.

Back to the boil on our necks.

This President perpetuates a false narrative that many Americans believe, allowing him to shield himself from personal scrutiny as he accumulates financial wealth.

He's not a patriot.

He's not there for the majority.

He's there for a minority.

He's in office for the one.

Himself.

It's becoming increasingly obvious.

The only way to get rid of a boil is with a lance.

The actual substance of the argument must be pierced.

And in our case, the lance of truth must pierce the prejudice of tyranny.

The veil has been lifted, and our way is clear to see.

We must be grounded in the knowledge that freedom and justice are for all.

We're going to try to save as much of the quilt of America as we can.

But that lance can be used for more than lancing old boils.

It can be used as a needle to sew new bright threads of compassion, truth, and honor into the fabric of our nation.

Do not suffer fools.

Drop hate and pick up hope.

Shine the light of truth before freedom's door.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Broken

Broken is not a bad word.

Most, if not all, things in our universe must first break to be useful.

When we break away from the story, we reflect on the world and our place in it, and we can then come to terms with the truth of life.

We become an instrument of the power of love.

Do you live behind a wall of your creation, and did you have help building it?

All the isms out there in our world purposely put up rigid walls to keep people locked up.

The isms fill minds with half-truths and goad followers to attack and deny all others as false.

Have you ever heard anyone say you can't trust so and so because they are ________ fill in the blank?

Compassion, honor, duty, and truth all fall away in favor of the prejudice and the advocacy of the given ism.

The ism feeds the personal prejudice of the individual of the group to keep its followers from straying.

But more importantly, it feeds the need to maintain power and position that the followers of the ism are afraid they will lose if they don't fight back.

But what happens if you let your narrative of how you believe the world works fall away?

What happens if your world breaks?

Think about this sentence: billions of years ago, a star exploded, creating the elements you are made of.

Just reading that sentence could break a worldview.

Only in the supernovae of a star, a star large enough that when it reaches its end of days, it collapses on itself, forcing together atoms.

These atoms that are broken and reforged in the massive explosion constitute the elements we find in our solar system.

Think about it.

A Sun in the past had to die to give life to us today.

That is the truth.

You don't have to accept it as the truth.

However, the universe doesn't accept your personal story.

The universe neither accepts our sense of morality nor asks for our permission to do the things it does.

The universe is.

It is up to each of us to discover it.

Discover its truth.

When we break from prejudice and see the world as it is and not how we pretend it is, the distance between you and the next person is just an arm's length away.

We all like to think of ourselves as being unique and special.

Unique, yes, on the outside, but in the heart, we are all the same.

Fear keeps us from doing what we are intended to do with our lives.

Once broken, we can hear the call of love.

Once broken, we can see the need for love.

Once broken, we can reach out to the world with compassion for the first time.

Break the walls of the ism.

No matter how small a person may believe they are, love will give them both strength and courage to make a difference in this world.

A young woman named Rosa Parks made a difference that day when she defied the Jim Crow laws, which were unjust.

The unnamed people who march in our streets against the immigration policy of this president have moved the conscience of a nation.

The Parkland students, the parents of Sandy Hook, have moved others to stand against the ism of the merchants of death.

That person you saw who dropped a coin into a bucket made a difference in the world that day.

It's ironic that the smallest, what seems to be ineffective, the broken, are precisely the type of people who love to change the world.

Our world is broken.

Some of us have been tasked by love to bring the pieces back together again.

To heal.

To bring back hope.

The world will not be the same as it was.

The world will be better.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Right From Wrong

How can you know if you're in the right?

Many people, past and present, have and will go to their graves believing they are right.

Over 620,000 Confederate soldiers died for the cause of the South during the American Civil War.

They believed they were in the right.

1,773,700 plus German soldiers died during World War I.

They believed they were in the right.

Then, the German people still believed they were in the right, and the rest of the world was wrong, and for a second time, they went to war with the world, and over 4.3 million soldiers were killed, and over 500,000 civilians were killed.

They got the message that they were wrong.

3 million North Korean soldiers died for their cause.

They believed they were in the right.

1.1 million North Vietnamese soldiers died for their belief.

They believed they were in the right.

This doesn't count the tens of millions of non-believers killed by these true believers during these conflicts, who murdered the other under the assumption that there can only be one truth.

Today, we can see who was on the wrong side and who was on the right side during those conflicts.

But why didn't the people during those wars see the writing on the wall?

Why couldn't they see they were wrong in the first place?

There are big questions of right and wrong, but there are also everyday interactions, conflicts, and issues that require answers. 

How do you know you're in the right?

How many of us are willing to kill for a belief?

In our nation, many believe that they have the right to own guns and to kill whom they want when they want for their reasons.

No one can stop them from killing, not even the Constitution they believe in.

We have subtler folks who casually discriminate based on race.

Discrimination is a kind of casual death sentence upon the victim who is never given a real chance to thrive.

Greed drives many to accumulate wealth through fraudulent businesses, charities, and religious organizations.

Greed instructs the follower that the innocent are sheep, and you are the shearer.

Take from the stupid; they'll never miss it.

Does taking from the poor to make oneself rich ever raise a flag that they are immoral?

Does it matter to them, and if it doesn't, why?

Does a type of social or economic racism allow the person to convince themselves that this other kind of person doesn't deserve to be happy?

I'm of the mind that you either like humanity or you don't.

You're either willing to lend a hand or believe that life is a party and it's there for the taking.

I'm also of the mind, given our current time, that the split between those who are aware and support the common good versus those who don't care about it is approximately 60/40.

I'm being an optimist, and based on the current polls, which demonstrate that 40% of our citizens support our current President, and 60% don't.

That ratio can be applied to every issue that comes up today.

There are, 40% of the nation who want children locked up.

There are 40% who want to discriminate against brown people.

There are 40% who don't want women to have equal pay.

There are 40% who would be happy with a dictator as long as that dictator favored them and oppressed the 60%.

There are 40% who want no restrictions on their right to kill with guns.

There are 40% who don't want the LGBTQ+ community to exist, let alone have equal rights.

There are 40% who don't want abortions for any reason.

There are 40% who believe that the rich and corporations love them.

There are 40% who don't believe that man can change the climate.

There are 40% who don't want to share food, neighborhoods, the street, the sidewalk, waiting in line, your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

There are 40% who don't believe in the Constitution and want it abolished.

It's a truly sad thing to consider.

How could so many be so willing to destroy so much and yet still believe they are in the right?

What blinds people to pain?

What makes people deaf to the sound of sorrow? 

What makes people ignore the crippling predatory power of poverty?

What takes away a person's ability to feel the anguish of hopelessness in another?

Is it as simple as "At least it's not me?"

How did generations, these generations that share this nation with us turn their hearts and minds away from love?

What put up the walls?

What burned down the truth of the common good?

What ground up common decency?

How did respect become hate?

Why did so many stop dreaming?

Why did so many of us stop dreaming of a better world?

They stopped dreaming altogether…

So many have swallowed the pill of bitterness and now spew rank hatred in their wake.

Why?

How can a person believe that hatred, discrimination, intolerance, and selfishness are standing on the side of goodness?

Of goodness?

Of compassion?

Of honor?

Of duty?

Personally, I'm gobsmacked.

America, and please, psychologists, tell me if I'm wrong, but America has a personality disorder.

An example is the "Opioid" problem.

Yes, a corporation and doctors collaborated to make money from their product.

They are sociopaths, for sure.

However, there is another problem that is more disturbing than corporate greed and the willingness to abandon their customers.

It's called personal responsibility.

Vast swaths of the Midwest have seen and are living in the aftermath of losing heavy industry and manufacturing to other countries, driven by corporate boards' pursuit of ever-growing profits.

Unemployment, economic downturns, and even depressions of the past meant everyone had to work harder.

Tough times made a tough people.

Can do spirit.

It didn't mean that they threw morality, society, self-respect, and belief in the rule of law out the window and went from no job to heroin addict overnight.

Historically speaking, if you're out of work, you become an alcoholic.

But opioids?

Heroine?

How is that doing right?

What makes one say I am different from the rest of these losers, I'm not an addict, I got this under control, I'm in the right?

I need this to get my life straight?

This personality disorder that America has did not develop on its own.

No.

No.

People do bad things when their dreams are taken away.

When people can't dream, it means they are depressed.

Suicidal.

When dreams turn into nightmares, some people lash out in fear and anger.

There is something we as a nation need to know, something we all need to hear.

We can dream again.

We have to, and it is our duty to dream again.

We don't have to believe we need to tear up and burn down what we have to make a clean start of it again.

No.

You don't set your house on fire because you need a new pillow.

Some of us need to calm down.

Open our eyes.

Our minds.

Our hearts.

Understand that the first principle of being right is to believe in truth.

Even if that truth reveals that we are in the wrong.

There is and only has been one truth in all of human history.

Not your truth or my truth, but one great universal truth that has united us from birth to death.

Wisdom comes from compassion.

It's why a man a long time ago said, "What parent would give their child a rock if they are hungry?"

Too many fellow Americans believe they are in the right and are handing out rocks to the rest of us to suck on.

That's got to change.

Love means doing more, not less.

Love asks more of each of us every day.

Reach out to that brother and sister and share some of your courage with them.

Lift that box off their heads called fear.

Push away the night terrors created by their fear.

Ask them to join in a new dream.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fundamental

The times they are changing.

The people at the top have undergone numerous name changes throughout history.

A moving target is hard to hit.

For a very long time, they were known as bandits.

Then Master.

Then King.

Then Aristocracy.

Then the Man.

Then, the Ownership Class.

They have had a few things in common over the past 10,000 years.

The ownership class does not like to share.

The ownership class does not like public education.

The ownership class does not like the Public period.

The times they are changing.

In the past, 400 years ago, the fear that struck at the heart of the Aristocracy was movable type.

Moveable type meant that anything said on any given day could be printed and read by thousands on the same day.

The Kings in the past were not afraid of the public learning of their thievery in time for the public to take action.

The Master's controlled the narrative about themselves masterfully.

The public couldn't understand the motivations of the wealthy because we were poor.

Not just poor in the pocketbook, but also poorly educated, poorly understood politics, poorly endowed with brains that were equal to those of the rich.

Moveable type enabled the almost instantaneous dissemination of facts to the general public.

It took many social and political revolutions, including the American Revolution, before the Aristocracy regained control of the narrative.

You can point to the American Civil War as being one of the turning points in history, where a War of the Aristocracy was committed to further the power and control of industry.

The First World War was a war between the Aristocracy of Europe.

Every war since then has been about control of corporate power over resources and who ultimately sits on industry boards, controlling the planet's natural wealth.

Those commodities are oil and uranium.

The Man in control of the "Business" gave money to politicians who wrote the laws, who then made the world favorable once again to the aristocrats.

Dissent was easily suppressed through the media, and narratives casting doubt upon public institutions were firmly ingrained in the public perception once again.

Can't trust the government…

Freedom had the drapes pulled, and the public didn't see it coming.

The ownership class is good at its public relations; you have to give them that.

However, an immigrant to America had an idea from watching Star Trek. Steve Jobs wanted to own and operate a company that built and supplied the computer that controlled the Starship Enterprise.

Today, over 2.1 billion smartphones are in the hands of the public, and this number continues to grow.

This is causing, yet again, a fundamental shift of power to which the Aristocrat is once again in jeopardy.

The Ownership class is throwing the kitchen sink at the truth, trying to stop the information age.

At least those are aware enough to see that their yacht is on fire.

The Masters are losing control of the narrative once again.

Every day, countless millions can see and hear how their neighbor fell off their skateboard and broke their tailbone.

They can see and hear what their government representative has said about cooperating with an enemy of their country.

They can see and hear the owner of an airplane company say, "…oops, we made a mistake, people died, our bad."

They can see and hear how current-day Aristocrats tell women what they can and can't have in their bodies.

The narrative is no longer in control of the invisible corrupt.

We are witnesses to a transition in history, just like the time of the invention of movable type.

Our world is changing.

It will change fundamentally.

The genie is out of the bottle.

No amount of alternative narrative can prevent the truth from being revealed.

The sight of a man running away, shot in the back by police.

A Sex Trafficker is sitting with your senator, your president's family.

A teacher is choking a student.

A teen is shooting a store clerk in the face.

Men in the street are carrying tiki torches and chanting slogans of Nazis.

The sight of a melted North Pole.

This power, which has been given to us in the palm of our hands, is an instrument for fundamental change in our world and our society.

For the first time in human history, those who feed and profit from fear can no longer hide.

What happens next?

The times they are changing…

Peace 

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Fear

Fear creates false stories.

If you are afraid, you are willing to believe the worst of the things you are scared of.

This phenomenon has been a part of human consciousness for a very long time.

Entire faiths and entire societies are based on fear.

Fear of death.

Fear of the stranger.

Fear of new ideas.

Fear of change.

Fear of you.

That's right.

Somebody, somewhere, right this very minute, is afraid of you. 

Of what you represent.

What do you represent?

Are you working for peace between your brother and your sister?

Or do you work against them because you don't trust them?

Or do you fall into the third thing, which captures the majority of us, which is that you do nothing?

Fear will render the most logical person to accept the illogical.

Since humanity first arose, fear of fear has created a false narrative.

A false story.

A false idea that there is a choice to be made.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Upon the question of immigration, we are told you must have security first; then, possibly, consideration will be given to why undocumented immigration happens in the first place.

Why can't we do both?

We have adopted an ugly discourse of narrowly believing there is only one way to solve a problem.

We search for a magic silver bullet that we can fire off and finish off the beast.

We want to eliminate the thing that causes us to worry and work as quickly as possible.

We want a better world without doing any work.

I'll declare that to be a lazy, sluggish way of thinking.

It ignores our reality of life.

Let me put it this way…

When your parent cleaned your bottom, did they do it only once?

Did they say I'll find the best method of cleaning my child's bottom, and I'll be done with that!

They cleaned your bottom once and walked away.

They were self-satisfied that they had done the job in the best and most efficient way they knew how and never came back.

No.

Life is about messes and how we do our duty to attend to them.

Messes are renewed on a daily basis.

Your parent didn't have a fear of their duty to love their child.

Your parent saw it as a privilege to care for you.

It is our privilege to care for each other.

Each of us has an ability, no matter how large or small and humble, to reach out and care for each other. 

We can both walk and talk.

We can both care and have standards.

We can praise and critique.

Fear wants us to believe there is a binary choice between yes and no when, in reality, we all know that the world is gray.

Evil never wants a compromise.

A compromise would mean giving and giving, but that is not what evil is about.

Our duty to each other is never-ending.

Love doesn't stop at the border.

Love doesn't stop at the patient's bedside.

Love doesn't stop at the arrest of a suspect.

Love doesn't stop at the bench before the judge.

Love doesn't stop with the words in our Constitution.

Love asks more.

Love asks you to do all things with a glad heart.

You don't get to choose on the path of love how you can segregate your heart.

The realm of good ideas all has a seat at the table of humanity.

Love demands that we do all of them together.

We do not get to choose.

Love knows we can handle it.

Only fear tells us to choose one.

Life is not like Sophie's Choice.

We are not at the point of a gun to choose the life of one of our children over another.

We do not live in a world of a Paleolithic culture, having to decide which child we must sacrifice to the "gods" so that we can have a good crop next year.

We don't have to create gods to get past the fear of death.

Attention!

The world has moved beyond that cultural, mental restriction of child sacrifice.

Human sacrifice for a hollow safety.

Although some who feed fear want to feed that monster once again.

Blood doesn't have to be spilled for us to realize what the right thing to do is.

No.

We can keep both children.

We can keep all the children.

We can keep your children and mine. 

Hasn't the world gone through enough to realize that compassion has a huge hug?

Compassion's arms are endless.

We can do both…

It's not difficult.

It's called love.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Cannibals

Straight up.

The wealthy cannibalize society by hoarding wealth and stealing its dignity.

Throughout recorded history, this has been a fact.

It has never stopped.

It's a fact.

It has never stopped.

Why should it?

The wealthy are a crafty type of parasite, for the most part.

They feed off their host to the point of weakening it.

But the rule for the wealthy is not to bleed the host so much that they die.

In recent centuries, the French Revolution is a good point, in fact, demonstrating how the wealthy lost control of their greed.

Centuries of no justice, enslavement, and destruction of the common good to enhance the coffers of the wealthy made a lot of ordinary people in France really upset.

They were so upset that they believed chopping the heads off the wealthy would lead them to a better society.

It alleviated the immediate problem of the local wealthy ignoring the needs of the host they were feeding on, but it wasn't a cure.

Killing is never a cure.

Government-sponsored killing, primarily of the non-wealthy, is a part of the cycle of justice put into place by the wealthy so that the larger society never addresses the source of the problems we all face.

People who cannot and will not share.

Some of us may recall the words of the golden rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Or, as the wealthy use that same sentiment but with a twist, do unto others before they do unto you.

Wealth does a terrible thing to people. 

It enhances their character flaws.

If a person were a small ass, they would become an enormous ass with a wealth injection.

Sharing is not a trait that we are born with.

It is a fact.

If you are not aware of this, please look into the current human genome project to understand how we are all born with a selfish nature. 

Are Babies Born Good? by Abigail Tucker, Smithsonian Magazine, 2013.

Sharing has to be taught by "caring" people.

Some of us get the lesson while others are naturally predisposed to be resistant to sharing.

Others still may have had bad parents who never took the time to instruct or demonstrate sharing with others outside their immediate family.

Sharing means giving up some of your resources to help another.

On a hostile planet with a rapidly changing environment, resources to keep you alive are critical.

It's obvious why an inborn trait of not sharing would be a universal fact in all of humanity everywhere.

Hoarding resources allows the individual to survive and pass on their genes.

However, this biological method of survival is antimatter to a society.

Society is all about cohesion, right?

Sticking together?

The rugged individual who is the self-made man, always winning, the top dog, the alpha male, or the wealthy, is the complete opposite of what a community stands for.

Right?

The wealthy tell the poor we are better than you because we won't share.

So, in point of fact, the wealthy are the best at being humans who survive to pass on their genes and their inhumanity.

They survive at the expense of the lives that they destroy.

Is there a cure?

Is there a way to prevent this cannibalism?

There has been a cure right in front of our faces.

Love.

Love is the answer.

Love derives from our better angels.

We all have the instinct not to share.

But right there from the very beginning of our lives, a whisper tapped us all on our hearts.

You may or may not have recognized it. 

The wealthy shout in our faces to follow their example, to deny each other and ourselves, to serve them.

Some listen to those callous voices, thinking they will be like them one day.

Yet in the quiet spaces of all of our lives, the voice of love asks us to do more.

Love asks not to do one act of love but to do many acts of love at the same time.

Love knows we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Love knows we can share bread with the lost.

We can heal those who cannot repay us.

We can protect those who cannot defend themselves.

We can lift the hopeless and hold them in our arms till they feel safe.

We can wipe away the tears.

We can do all that any one of us can in just one day and do it again the next.

Love is stronger and more profound than the instinct of the wealthy not to share.

Love is a code that has existed in this universe long before the Earth was formed.

Love is a code, as elaborate or as simple as those who want to hide from it versus those who want to walk with it.

Love is wealth that can never be taken away.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Never Done

When we owned a home, the North side of the house had a problem with peeling paint.

Every summer, I had to get the ladder out, scrape the bubbling paint, and repaint it.

Each early spring, my father went out to trim the old growth on his fruit trees.

During the previous growing season, the tree would sprout sucker branches, which would leach out the tree's strength and divert that energy away from the growing fruit.

Sometimes, there is never enough time to complete what we need to do.

That's why there's a tomorrow.

Many tasks take more than one day to accomplish.

Completing a portion of the task each day with due diligence will help us reach our goal.

In the late 1800s, vitamins were discovered, albeit in a preliminary sense.

It was realized that some foods made people's health stronger than others, but the reason was unknown.

Grand claims were made by health food hucksters of the day that their mixtures could cure everything from ingrown toenails to women's complaints.

People then, as now, didn't go out of their comfort zones and habits.

It was known that inmates developed sickness and death from eating just cornbread and nothing else during imprisonment, but the authorities didn't know why.

It wasn't until 1912 that Casimir Funk isolated and confirmed the biochemical properties of what he termed vitamins, after which the public became aware of their benefits.

It turns out that the adage "a man can live on cornbread alone" is not valid.

You need a whole range of vitamins to live a healthy life.

Eating cornbread only and water will lead to a gruesome death.

However, knowledge of the right things to eat didn't flip a switch in people's diets.

Society abhors change.

People, on the whole, don't like to expend energy, do they?

For many, a crisis often serves as a catalyst for taking action.

The house has to be actually on fire before they think about taking the stacked newspapers out.

People have energy at the beginning, but for most, that enthusiasm dwindles with time.

They plant an herb garden and return a few months later to find that the weeds have taken over.

Our nation needs to tend to its democracy right now.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. admonished us all that the task of achieving equality and justice for all would not be accomplished in a day.

We each have our part to do.

The forces we fight will not give up.

Evil is not lazy.

Bigotry doesn't take the day off.

Racism feeds upon ignorance every day.

Injustice sprints ahead of the common good.

The weeds of intolerance grow in the fertile soil of anger and hopelessness.

Our challenge is not to succumb to apathy.

Nihilism.

If you've never picked an acre of beans, at the start, the task seems long, hot, and daunting.

The sun beats you down and stings your eyes.

The fly bites your ankles, and the blood flows.

You take a break, but the nagging feeling persists, urging you to get up and get it done.

While you're working, a friend stops by and lends a hand.

The neighbor next door sees you working and brings you a drink of cold water.

That neighbor joins in, and then the guy across the way brings a sandwich and helps with the picking, too.

A community has come together of brothers and sisters, young and old, rich and poor, all joining hands and hearts to share in the work.

To share in the riches.

To share in the love. To share the burden of the task.

A human thing.

We will get there together, all of us, one day.

Love has always been stronger than hate.

Always and in all ways.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Hear That?

In the night, where the streetlights buzz.

The smell of cooking still lingers.

A sharp word yelled through broken walls.

A slap.

A body hits the wall.

Silence.

Hear that?

Saturday night, the lights of the city are a blur.

Running from a ghost of a memory.

Fear propels relief into the vein.

Fear turns eyes away from truth.

Funny how the world doesn't fit into the story told.

A hollow cry for help.

Hear that?

There are sounds we want to hear.

The comfort of a familiar song.

The beat of rain up on the roof.

The thrill of children who are about to eat.

The words that tell us that we are wanted.

The abiding of love.

Hear that?

You and I can hear it.

How is it that so many can't?

What has happened to make pain invisible?

What story is more important to protect, which allows suffering?

Why are peace and prosperity only for a privileged few?

How can so many hope for so little for so many?

Hear that?

It's a sound that this President has never heard.

It's a beat that puts fear in the corrupt.

It's a solo voiced by knights of this republic that makes Evil run.

It's a chorus sung by the old, the young, the weak, the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the majority, by we the people.

It's the sound of justice coming right quick.

Hear that?

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby