Sleeping Dogs

Let sleeping dogs lie (a verb functioning as a proverb when used in the imperative mode, etymology unknown). 

A strong enough piece of advice on the surface, but letting sleeping dogs lie should not mean to let the dog itself die as well. One ought to at least check for a pulse or hold a tasty treat beneath the critter's nose to gain a reassuring sign of life. What has transpired in the past, through the influence of a time and its troubles now left behind, should not be allowed to be the measure of the present. Events that may have caught us up in the past, and the words and the actions that were products of those events, should have become as obsolete as the butter churn. People change, they grow, they learn. Nonetheless, there are those who find the erection of prisons easier than self-edification. The figures of the past may be locked up for life, tried, convicted, and filed away for eternity. For myself, I find forgiveness more useful, and I find these old dogs as pleasant as ever, as long as one does not poke the old wound.