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I’m woven in a fantasy,
I can’t believe the things I see
The path that I have chosen now
Has led me to a wall
And with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost
It rises now before me,
A dark and silent barrier between,
All I am, and all that I would ever want be
It’s just a travesty,
Towering, marking off the boundaries my spirit
Would erase

To pass beyond is what I seek
I fear that I may be too weak
And those are few who’ve seen it
Through to glimpse the other side,
The promised land is waiting like a maiden that is soon to be a bride
The moment is a masterpiece,
The weight of indecision’s in the air
It’s standing there, the symbol and the sum of all that’s me
It’s just a travesty,
Towering, blocking out the light and blinding me
I want to see

Gold and diamonds cast a spell,
It’s not for me I know it well
The riches that I seek
Are waiting on the other side
There’s more that I can measure in the treasure of the love that I can find
And though it’s always been with me,
I must tear down the Wall and let it be
All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be, in harmony
Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross
There is no loss

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This song contains three truths the world desperately needs to hear and understand.  The unbridled power such understanding would conjure up would transform the surface of the globe.

Today, I seek to step outside my comfort zone, be a little bolder, and take a little more risk.

I wonder what my wife’s song sounds like.  (Not her fault I do not know I’m embarrassed to admit, but mine.)  I used to know.  That tune was what called me to her. Today, I will seek to find it again.

Dec 14, 2008 I posted the song Lonely Moon which talked about a man who only wanted “to love and to be loved.”  He wanted a simple life but it became complicated.  Not at his own choosing but as a consequence of a mixed up society, maybe, who can say for certain?  Nonetheless, I could related to the suggestions given in the artwork, song, and lyrics.  I posted that song after hearing news of how my brother would not be able to visit at Christmas as we had hoped; the first Christmas after our Mom had passed away.  It was sad news and the reason why was even more disconcerting.  Hence, the anguish inside me and a search for a song.  This song seemed related to his circumstances.  It reminded me of the deficiencies of life, our battle in life, and in the end comforted me. These struggles are all to often shared by others.  Somehow there is comfort in knowing you are not alone, that we are all in the boat together.

Now, as of yesterday, once again I hear painful news of one of my brothers.  It was so distressing I cried.  I wake this morning finding my mind already at work searching for a place to rest.  Once again I  turn to poetry and song.  The beat of Dan Fogelberg’s song The River plays in the background of my head.  I’m not sure what all the lyrics mean but somehow I think they depict our struggle with the meaning of life.  I get this picture in my head as I read his lyrics of a saw positioned above me ready to saw me in two.  On one side of the saw is tradition and on the other side is my will pulling the other way. In turn they pull back and forth and in the end I am cut in two.  I’m left there on the floor two piles of flesh and blood and nothing more – no spirit, no value, just nothing.  All I cherish and love, all I have worked for is tossed to the wind.

The River by Dan Fogelberg (click to play)

I was born by a river
Rolling past a town
Given no direction
Just told to keep my head down.
As I took my position
A man fired a gun
I was so steeped in tradition
That I could not run.

We come into the world in bondage to our tradition without choice.  We grow to know we are an individual but don’t know how to distinguish ourselves in a way that is truly reflective of who we are.  (I think of the troubling teen years.)

I was raised by a river
Weaned upon the sky
And in the mirror of the waters
I saw myself learn to cry.
As my tears hit the surface
I saw what had been done.
I gave feet to my freedom
And I did run.

The painful experiences and let downs of early life wake us up.  We see more clearly now who we are and what we want.  We break away from tradition (the river?) and become an individual (captain of my soul).

Someday later
I saw the writing in the dust
It told me how I should travel
It told me who I was.

Maybe this is a reference to the Good Book (The Bible) or some other spiritual or universal truth that spans time.  It comes from the outside (not something we figure out on our own) but it explains the facts of life.  Generally, this is not good news.  It explains how you are defective and live in a fallen world.

I ran far from the river
Far as I could see
And as the sun hit my shoulders
I felt it burning me.
How I longed for the waters
As the fire raged
How I longed for the river
As I aged.

Left with the sobering truth about life  you determine to improve yourself and the world.  A noble cause but filled with all the same hardships as before if not more because of your increased understanding.  You don’t fear the river any longer but now consider it an ally.

I will die by a river
As it rolls away
Bury me in the nighttime
Do not waste the day.
High above the waters
That roll on to the sea.
All the angels in heaven will
laugh at me.
They will laugh at me.

Life chews you up and spits you out.  It leaves you empty and dizzy with no direction.  If you can’t ascribe your own meaning then you are nothing but dust and that becomes apparent to all.

My life was naught but a river
Rolling through my brain
Made of so many teardrops
Made of so much pain.

The river in your mind is nothing but a stream that feeds the bigger river described at the bigging.  The cycle will be repeated with the next generation.  There is no conclusion to the song as there is no conclusion to life.  It goes on just as meaningless as it began.  The beat of the music makes me think of how unforgiving life is and how it demands a certain respect from us all the time giving nothing in return and leaving us in a vacuum devoid of meaning.

clipped from www.pbs.org The financial industry brought the economy to its knees, but how did they get away with it? With the nation wondering how to hold the bankers accountable, Bill Moyers sits down with William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Black offers his analysis of what went wrong and his critique of the bailout BILL MOYERS: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong? WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely. WILLIAM K. BLACK: I don’t know whether we’ve lost our capability of outrage. Or whether the cover up has been so successful that people just don’t have the facts to react to it.

“Madison, agreeing with the journal of the convention, records that the grant of power to emit bills of credit was refused by a majority of more than four to one. The evidence is perfect; no power to emit paper money was granted to the legislature of the United States.”
~ George Bancroft (1800-1891) American historian, U.S. Secretary of the Navy (1845-1846), established the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845
Source: A Plea for the Constitution (1886)

“No state shall emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, coin money…”~ United States Constitution
Source: United States Constitution, Article One, Section Ten

“Emitting bills of credit, or the creation of money by private corporations, is what is expressly forbidden by Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution.”
~ U.S. Supreme Court
Source: Craig v. Missouri, 4 Peters 410.

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”~ John Kenneth Galbraith (1908- ) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor
Source: Money: Whence it came, where it went – 1975, p15

“The legal tender quality [of money] is only valuable for the purposes of dishonesty.”
~ Justice Salmon Chase Chief Justice, formerly Secretary of Treasury in President Lincoln’s administration
Source: in dissent of Knox vs. Lee (The Legal Tender Cases, 1871)

“Money power denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.”
~ William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) US Congressman (1891-1895), US Secretary of State (1913-1915) under President Woodrow Wilson, Democratic Party nominee for President 1896, 1900 and 1908

“Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”~ George Washington (1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, ‘Father of the Country’
Source: in letter to J. Bowen, Rhode Island, Jan. 9, 1787

“Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess.”~ Irving Fisher (1867-1947) American economist
Source: 100% Money, 1935

“Those who create and issue money and credit direct the policies of government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.”
~ Reginald McKenna (1863-1943) British Chancellor of Exchequer

“And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment. All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you’ve done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it.”
~ God
Source: James 5:1-6

Ill tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then Ill get on my knees and pray
We dont get fooled again”
~ The Who
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM0WIP7eMYs

Bob Dylan captures half my feelings…

Knock Knock Knocking On Heaven’s Door

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