Sounding The Seventh Trumpet (2001) "Breaking Their Hold"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

When you see them coming in form.
And they say they do what's best for you.
Fighting for one total control.
They are planned and organized for you.
Breaking their hold. Breaking their hold of control they strive.
To keep you down, behind your back, the time has come, the end is near.
It's when you sleep, so late at night, and in the light, getting prepared.
It's not to help you, but help their cause, under one system, you wont exist.
They are the few, with all the power, our system screams, we can't let them tear our hearts out.
Screaming, pulling on our pride. Stand together for the right cause, one system to our demise

Who are they in this poem?

Are they overly controlling parents, seeking to force their son or daughter to fulfill the parents' dreams at the expense of their own?

Are they representative of the supra culture which formulates the life path of "acceptable," looking and acting, and voting a certain way?

Are they the school system, which inculcates each new batch of children not only with knowledge, but a particular worldview?

Are they representative of religion, where the form is all important, but the insides are hollow?

Are they the rule makers and rule enforcers, who crush the poet and his friends into a certain mold?

One thing is sure, this piece is about refusing to allow the deadening affect that can happen when a a person is institutionalized. Protect your personal boundaries, and refuse to conform to the demands of society, the corporation, the culture. Make a contract with yourself to be true to yourself, to who you are. Check your thoughts and actions against your own internal, personal code.

The poet cries out for individuality, not one system that grinds all people to its own shape.

Unity is not the same as conformity. Unity, at the heart of community, is about many different kinds of people cooperating with each other in love. The apostle Paul likened this to the complexity of a living body,

I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, "Get lost; I don't need you"? Or, Head telling Foot, "You're fired; your job has been phased out"?

As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the "lower" the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

You are Christ's body—that's who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your "part" mean anything. You're familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his "body"...

But it's obvious by now, isn't it, that Christ's church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part?

In fact, a rock band is a vibrant example of this principle. Each player has a vital part, the band reels without even just one of its members. Together they create something bigger than the sum of their individual contributions. This is beautiful community that institutions so often try to mimic and recreate, but fail terribly. Community is alive, it's organic.

Institutions are often not alive, they are usually mechanical.

we can't let them tear our hearts out.

[the institution the poet was writing about was breaking free from parents and gaining control over one's life]

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