From protests to spilt coffee

Shadows and Remnants

The past has passed and the present presents itself while placing historical history and memoirs and memories onto a single shelf.

Modifying and modulating the plan is all you’ve ever known, yet somehow the shadows and remnants of life can’t help but be shown.

Take a breath and breathe. Make a moment to see what’s been seen.

Leap at what’s been leapt and keep the secret that should be kept until the arrival of your moment has arrived for you to survive where others have perished and died. 

The love of your first love never truly fades away, whether that be money or drugs or the individual who has chosen to stray.

Sleep, for you have not slept.  Remember to not leave the gift that’s been left.

Shadows and Remnants Part II

You have awoken from the awakening just before your dream and staring up above you wonder what it all could mean.

From shadows and remnants to memoirs and memories you open your eyes a little wider in hopes that you will see what’s been seen.

Pause and just wait.  Be patient for this is your fate.

Recalling the calling from the gift that one did leave, you arise from the dust, trying to ignore that which did bereave.

Boxed inside another box, you gently open the gift to discover a delicate, intricate, yet simplistic foxy little fox.

Take a breath and make a moment.  It’s a representation of your torment.

Bringing it into the light you are enlightened by the fact that this single icon is what holds you back from letting a bygone be a bygone.

There’s no need to crush it, only to let it go.  All you need to do is watch it fall and spin and then shatter below.

The weight will be lifted because you are a survivor that is divine and gifted.

-Mikey D. B.-

            In the year 1517, one of the most important years in western civilization, Martin Luther made not just one, but 95 complaints against the Catholic Church and posted them to the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany.  We could get down to the nitty-gritty and go through each and every one, debating and arguing, but to make a long conversation much shorter, all of these 95 complaints were made for one basic reason: that the Church was involved in the profane and not the sacred.  That there was no longer a wall or a contrast between the world and the divine.  Martin Luther was bugged by the fact that the Church was flaunting the sacredness of its duty because of their involvement in things much less holy.  These 95 complaints were 95 protests against basically everything the Catholic Church was doing at the time, hence the name ‘Protestant’.  The reformation emerged from this act in 1517, and the basic goal of the reformation was to simply re-establish the lost contrast of the divine and world.  Catholics killed Protestants and Protestants killed Catholics in this battle (Norton Anthology English Literature Vol. 1 p.625-27 8^th edition).  Martin Luther’s 95 protests eventually led to the foundation of the Untied States.  There are obviously a lot of details and events that occurred between 1517 and July 4, 1776, like Calvinism and the Puritans coming to the Americas for a quick example, BUT 1517 was the first major link in this chain of events. 

Much like Luther, George Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, and numerous others had complaints of their own.  The citizens of what is now the United States of America, had taxes imposed on them without their consent.  These citizens had the benefit of trial by jury refused to them.  They were constantly accused and found guilty of crimes they did not commit. (The Declaration of Independence).  They were being raped both literally and politically.  Their lives were being destroyed right in front of their eyes and were driven to the point of desperation.  I’m putting it mildly when I say they were being treated in an unjust manner.  Revolution was their answer to the responses of a tyrannical and sadistic king and after many battles fought and countless lives lost, they gained the justice they were searching for.  The Founding Fathers gave us opportunity to have justice and equality and to have freedom and security.  We have unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  However, do we take advantage of these rights?  Do we realize the cost of these freedoms that we are born with?  Do we really appreciate what has been given to us?

Today, complaining has come to a different caliber and I believe a much lower one.  We may have the right to complain, but should we?  Lawsuit after countless frivolous lawsuit tells me that no, for the most part we should not.  From coffee burns to gross obesity, these lawsuits testify that we have not realized the gifts that are before us.  We take advantage of our divine opportunities and misunderstand that we are not entitled to wealth and glory.  We have come to a point of separation one with another.  I honestly don’t think that spilt coffee burning someone’s lap is enough to drive that individual to a lawsuit.  There is something more.  Something deeper is driving us to take little grievances and amplify their significance to hate, envy, greed, etc.  Think about it.  When we curse the world and all of its inhabitants because we got ranch dressing instead of blue cheese, it’s not the wrong salad dressing that built the fire, it only ignited it. 

I’ve explored the idea before of how the significance of something determines our understanding in “Pope Vs. Vader”, but there is a fine line between ignorance and a problem that has been festering inside of us for years.  Some things demand justice while others are demanded in order to fill a void inside of us.  "We consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital clinging tenaciously to the memory of a discordant note we struck in a childhood piano recital, or something a spouse said or did 20 years ago that we are determined to hold over his or her head for another 20…. Even if one of those grievances did not originate with you, it can end with you” (Jeffery R. Holland, April 2012 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).  Whatever is holding you back from truly progressing, let it go.  Stop complaining about someone politically correct statements.  Yeah your co-worker has Little Man Syndrome, but who cares?!  Stop freaking out that “In God We Trust” is on a coin or that someone calls it a Christmas tree instead of the scientifically correct term.  Let that foxy little fox that has crept its way into our lives, fall, spin, and shatter below you.  Life is a gift.  Things could be much, much worse.  After all, your father could’ve try to kill you with a hatchet and then blew your house up with you in it (ABC news “Josh Powell Tried to Kill Sons With Hatchet Before Fatal Explosion).  Most of us have nothing to complain about, but we do.  Yes, we all get annoyed from time to time, that is human.  The actions or werds of someone offends us,  but when we let that annoyance fester and infest our lives, that is when we let torment dictate our them, holding us from achieving something more.