Walking The Journey

“The country is going to hell in a hand basket”, “These kids today, they have no respect”, “No one knows how to drive around here”, “The world is such an awful place these days”, “People are jerks”, “It just isn’t right what’s happening today”, “no, no, no”; just a few comments of negativity that are so much easier to hold onto when one embraces the life of negativity. Negativity is that easy and wide and vacant road that so many people, so many of us, chose to travel when stressed, helpless, and emotionally unsettled. Negativity is like a vast open brown dirt filled desert who’s heat dries up and burns the flesh, ripping moisture from the body, leaving it miserable, sad, painful, lonely. Negatively is often formed in the shadow of habits, not seen, that creep into our being from our family, our parents, our spouse, our friends, our coworkers, those we surround ourselves with, those who walk our journey. People who live in bars believe everyone drinks, those who lie believes everyone

Have you been walking along in life, minding your own business, peaceful and content, when out of the cranial darkness leaps an uninvited attacker, a predator, a monster whose sole purpose is to mess with your shui . The beast can take many forms, and like the demon Legion that Jesus cast out in that old story of long ago, can have many names, many faces, and many traits. The one, who has shown his face to the face of my soul, revealing his presence lately, has been irritation. Oh, I suppose his partner frustration is there with him as well. But then again, when the emotional demons arise, do they ever really travel alone? Driving this morning, while many youth in the homes I passed remained sleeping in their summer slumbers of hibernation from the institution of education, it dawned on me that I've continued to meet these demons with the same reactions, never gaining a continual peace from them. In fact, I suppose I've actually increased their strength and tentacles that wrap