Grind

Millstone to wheat, driven by some sickly mule, rolls inch by inch pressing down on what was in a former field. The heavy disc, scarred and scratched from years of performing the same service ever-so-carefully consumes all the innocent wheat chafe in his path. And the mule, blinders on, tied by nothing more than a fancy string to this old grind house, shakes its feeble legs, watches its coat waste away, all because it doesn't understand the simple complexity of knotsmanship.

Sometimes it feels like we can be either one of those three: millstone, mule, or stalk. We either are doing the grinding ourselves, pinned to a wheel turning around and around, not earning enough nor understanding our real worth. Or we are the mule, held by what we see as an insurmountable force, impossible to escape, at least in your own mind. So you are bound to what appears to be slavery, pushing forth whatever persons can't see the value in their own labor. Or you are the grain, like a farm girl tied on the railroad tracks, kicking and screaming and hoping and waiting that rescue will come, but that train is getting closer and those wheels is spinning harder. You are the victim, your fate set before you in your fellow brothers and sisters of the wheat field, their destiny crushed out before them.

But what is the truth in all of this?

The truth is that work is good. It is a good thing for a man to labor and to labor well. Nothing can compare to sweating on your brow, to feel your forearms tighten and tense with each and every move you make, to watch the dirty run between your legs as the shower water chases it to the drain. If a man is not careful, he can find that he loves work, that it empowers him and satisfies him in a way that nothing else can. And this is true and this is false.

Another truth in there is that we do have roles to play, roles laid out to be. "Everything that happens supposed to be, it's all predetermined can't change your destiny. Think I'll sit back and wait and see and I'll get to where I'm going."(Conner Oberst) Yet you can't just necessarily just wait around for it. Destiny and fate does not move to and fro seeking solitary and sediment people. Those people that wait on it have found their destiny and it is to become like the Thinker Statue, always posed in thought, wondering. But our roles are proactive, unlike the victimized wheat that cries out for help. If you play the victim long enough, then maybe that IS your role, but a role none the less sad and lonely, only joined by others that always believe they are the victim to this world, to this mill house. We are not chained to these roles forever, so take heart! Their will be a day, perhaps it has already come, where we shall be freed of the roles that the world has placed on us, and the role of victim, criminal, or foe.

One day the Grinding will cease, and the house will be destroyed, whether by revolution or time, vines slowly growing up the sides of its wheel housing, wood splitting and splintering. Termites, those slow and tiny little bugs, the guerrillas and rebels that will help release your soul. And future generations will pass by, wondering what that old building lurking in the distance used to be, and why it is so haunting still. It is where we give ourselves to work, where our souls are sold for so little and our only benefit is bread.

But thanks be to the Vine and to the Termite, the small and steady growing and feeding parts of nature that tear down those false buildings, that release the entrapped animals, that twist around the mill stone, causing it to seperate from the grind wheel and roll out the door to freedom, that carry away bundled wheat in the heat of the day, for it to fly and flee as the wind wills.