Carving the Arts at BSU

It's snowing softly, quietly today.  Yet, the fires of anger and frustration are burning deep in my spirit.  I've not slept well these last weeks.  I thought it was because my kids were sick and I was keeping a vigilant ear to their needs.  And perhaps it is.  But, I think it's my deep conscious mind telling me I have rested too long on an issue that needs voice.  Not the kind of voice that screams with fervor and zeal at  injustice and then blanches into boredom and normalcy.  NO, SIR!  This is an issue that speaks to the core of who I am.
Recently, it was announced that funding would be cut at Bemidji State University in the Arts Department.  ALL the arts.  I have friends who are professors there.  Professor of what?  Truth. Knowledge. Enlightenment.  Encouragment.  Art!  Men and women who have taught me and with whom I have shared a stage.  I can no longer afford to do nothing but lose sleep. 
Jeremiah Liend,  free-lance artisan, brilliant mind, keeper of the flame has been striving diligently to keep the art program from being cut. 

On his recent FB status he stated, 'just fired a warning shot to Hanson that I'm going to invade his office again Monday. It was not a pleasant letter. It will not be a pleasant meeting. And all hell will follow me.'

Hanson is the President of BSU.  One put there, I am convinced to do the nasty.  I'm guessing he gets sleep at night. 
Here is a response I wrote to J after reading a list of comments written on his status.  I was heartbroken by the lethargy and patheitic ideas presented by some to simply let it happen, as, and I quote, 'You all do not posses the will to affect real change to this system.'

The HELL you say.  I can only sit back and be a good girl for so long.


Dear Jeremiah,
 I know that you're still slumbering--probably not peacefully, as I guess that you seldom have serenity--but sleeping still.  I've just awoken myself.  In more ways than one. 
I've read the list of comments and have thus far remained quietly defiant to the goings-on surrounding the choices at BSU.  I have chosen to reserve my energies for things that I have deemed of higher priority, like children and church work. The fact that I live 25 miles away is yet another factor.  I don't fell like I should say much as one who has lived here for just 3 years.  An outsider.  I'm from the South and good little Southern girls sit quietly and fan themselves whilst the gentlemen plan the war. 
 But, at the mere mention of this topic, my heart bursts in obstinate desire.  It breaks and recoils and my mind rages with ideas and methods of tearing down the establishment, the regime, the administration.  I've never liked fans and I DON'T sit quietly very well.
I'm sure that your friend, Phillip Nelson meant well in his comments and I mean no disrespect.  But, Phillip darling, your green, obtuse ideas are unenlightened and apatheitic.  The kind of thinking that keeps women sitting quietly and men's liberties cast as chaff on the wind.  So, perhaps, Mr. Nelson, we will not succeed per your definition, but, thank heavens I don't live by your definition.   And thank heavens so many others don't either.
I have been re-awakened.  The fire refueled.  The desire to right wrongs can not be held any longer within my spirit. Maybe it was a desire to prove people like Phillip Nelson incorrect or maybe it's a desire to show my children that the world is NOT what other people hand you, but rather what you create. They are blind--not visionless.  It doesn't matter the reasoning.  It's time now for action.  I feel it my responsibility to now step out of my shadow in the corner and fight shoulder to shoulder in this cause. 
After your sleep, expect a call.
Sincerely, Bridget
PS--Mr. Nelson, if you've managed to make it through my whole letter, I extend to you an invitation to join the fray.  We may not win.  We may die trying.  But, we will die regardless.  And the wrongs will be there anyway.  What could be the worst to happen?  We win.  Come, engage.

The invitaion is to all.  Enagage.  I may not be a part of the hell that will follow Jeremiah into the man's office, but I sure will bring my own hell with me. 

Maybe now, I will nap.