The Mountain Top

Around 60 years ago from the heights of a stage, above some unconditional believers, a young preacher would say some words. Now it wasn't that long of a preach, no the preacher made a short speech. But even so those few words that, the preacher said on that heated April night, would go down forever in the scriptures of history. He stood there and yet in front of some amazed spectators he was unlike himself, he shivered and his nerves consumed him.
He stood on top of that mountain, and said that he had seen the promised land there, that he had heard the voice of the almighty himself. He said that the voice of the almighty called upon us to follow him to the top of the tall mountain, through the white blistering snows, through the rocky path until the green grasses of the valley of the promised land. The preacher shook and quivered, it was as if god had took control of his spirit and through him, through the young preacher from Georgia he had pronounced his final message. At the end of the speech the preacher collapsed, fell into his chair as if his mission was accomplished, and it actually was for the next morning God opened the gates of heaven to receive him.

Since that hated April night back in the year of 1968, not a lot has changed frankly at least for the better in my point of view. For you see at least in the times of the preacher people had hope, people believed that a new day was to come. And today in this superficial society we have forgotten the values that made that young preacher walk, that made that young preacher speak out, and fight for what he believed in. It's as if today we had gave up in some sorts the fight, at least the real fight. We think that our little personal fights are important and we let those little fights take over. We watch from our ivory towers, through out tainted glasses and in our grandiose cars the fire surrounding us. And all falls, and all falls, into the sea.
Everything around us crumbles and yet I stand here and watch. The day the preacher died, thousands went to the streets, thousands with fire had the idea to bring down the system, they burnt, they brunt, only to awake up surrounded by the ashes of their fire, not knowing why they had set the fire in the first place. They awoke and forgot why they were fighting, why they had fought and all went back to normal. Yes throughout years the preacher had died in vain, all had the memory of him none really did know what to with that memory. And so years went by and those that had once walked with the preacher forgot too, they still walked, but not knowing why. And all fell, and fell, into the sea.
Clouds of greed, and of selfishness had covered the mountain top, for us to see it no more. So we where born and lived thinking that all was perfectly normal, we lived our lives thinking about seconds, minutes and hours. Those that remember that great ideal, those that could still see the shine of the mountain top in their heads, tried to hide behind their material possessions , their big cars and houses, their money. And all falls, and all falls, into the sea.
We stood here and watched our prophets die.

So today in these dark times, times of despair in the winter of our hardship. Let us remember the wise words of once upon a time a young preacher who called upon a generation to leave their place of comfort and pleasure, and give in all of their material love trade it for truth. He said that instead of material riches what we needed was truth, instead of good intentions, he asked "give me justice" and rather then inflexible walls and tinted mirrors give me love. For some the call that resonated from the top of the marshes of Washington is completely and entirely bound to death. Many do not catch the universal grasp of the image that the young preacher left behind, for many he is but a leader of his people, a leader limited to his situation and captive of circumstances. For some believe that the young preacher's message was and is more important to some of us then the rest of us, they be wrong. Yes the preacher was a black man, but his message had no colour, and we must not enslave his message. Today we do have a black man at the head of the preacher's fatherland, that even accomplished does not make his message moribund.
For today, the long winding road that leads to the promised land is still shaded by the shadows of doubt. Yes things have changed since the preacher gave his final speech from which years separate us. We keep our looks focused on the big lights that now shine on a once dark conner, we are amazed and we stall in front of these shining lights. But as one little conner of the scene grabs our attention the vast darkness that is the rest of the scene escapes our view.
That young preacher is my hero, I believe that his voice lives on, and in his voice lives the voices of so many others, for what I mean is that what that young preacher tried to do during his stay on earth was to continue the work of so many that sacrificed their destiny and blood to accomplish. The names of those are many, some known, some not. The eternal fight between reason and fanaticism, between truth and lust, on goes. The valley shall descend, only when man wins that fight, the inner fight that defines mankind, the fight between the greater man and the inner beast. And today it looks like more then ever, we must hear and follow the call of the young preacher, we might not slay the beast in one, two, five or maybe even ten generations, but when we do the flowing black water torrent that poisons our fertile land shall dry-up.
We must slay the inner beast. Do you hear the bell toll?
Sky