Inspiration

Today we pause to remember. Today we remember, to be inspired.

I Believe in the Power of Love

Yesterday while driving the better half and I were discussing our experiences  with discrimination as gay men, his experiences as a Latino and my experience as a white male. Being gay men we can empathize about discrimination to a point, but we agreed we can never fully understand what it is to be black.

What we can do is acknowledge that we don’t have the same plight, but we can stand for what is right. We can speak out against injustice. We can love, support and stand with our black brothers and sisters. We can believe in the power of Love.

Power of Love – Deee-Lite – 1990

Why Love? The answer us given to us by one if our greatest inspirations.

Capital Treasures

As we sit boarding our stopover flight in Denver, memories of the past week of travels fill Fearsome’s brain. He asked that I post a few pics to document a few of his favorites.

Easter at the National Cathedral

Spring gardens at Dumbarton Oaks

Cezanne 

Pollack

Nickson

Warhol

Hopper

A Leader

An Inspiration

A Cause

May we never forget the cause. May we pick up the baton and continue forward.

MLK

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”

…Martin Luther King Jr  …April 1963

I love

In order to live as a human among humans I must learn to accept.

I must learn to accept that we are different. I must learn that we are the same. I must learn we share. I must learn I will not like everything. I must learn that not everyone will like me. I must learn that many times it’s better to focus on similarities rather than differences. I must learn that not all human aspects are good. I must learn to forgive.

In order to live a life that I myself can feel good about, I must, and will, stand up for righteousness.

I will lead by example. I will do good. I will be kind. I will speak justly. I will convey honesty. I will practice equality. I will appreciate diversity. I will look for commonality. I will share. I will understand. I will give. I will grow. I will listen. I will strive for betterment. I will serve. I will teach. I will encourage. I will compliment. I will support. I will practice. I will be vulnerable. I will gain courage. I will laugh. I will cry. I will accept. I will stand. I will love.

Issue 1

The very first issue of Captian America

Fearsome and I are not comic history buffs, but one thing we do know is that Captian America came into existence during World War II. The very first issue shows Captain America fighting the injustice of the ultimate of inhumane discrimination.

Our take:

Discrimination is born out of fear and ignorance. Fear of loss and ignorance of other cultures. Discrimination is actually the ego trying to build itself up out of a lonely inferior dark place.

A famous quote comes to mind:

Captain America was born out of values. Values of acceptance, freedom, growth, opportunity and bravery. Values that support humanity. The values that through humility and the realization that no one is better than any other, we may raise each other to equality and freedom beyond petty ego.

Fearsome values.

Stand up. Stay the corse. Don’t ever loose sight of what is good, nor ever stop working toward the goal of greater good.

Justice

It’s Wednesday. This morning we have a 90 minute in home massage to break up more of the post surgery scar tissue that still inhibits the use of our left shoulder. In preparation Fearsome desired a word to contemplate while receiving said massage. A contemplation as a meditation so to speak.

Due to recent news and circumstances, a word that came to mind and resonated with both of us this morning just happened to be:

Justice…

…according to The Oxford English Dictionary can be defined as…

noun
1.
just behavior or treatment.
“a concern for justice, peace, and genuine respect for people”
synonyms: fairness, justness, fair play, fair-mindedness, equity, evenhandedness, impartiality, objectivity, neutrality, disinterestedness, honesty, righteousness, morals, morality
“I appealed to his sense of justice”

So we post this contemplation as a place for us to look back and remember where we were and what was important to us this day. We also share it as it may be a contemplation that one of you dear readers may also enjoy this day.

A wise man once said…