Finding a Voice

My Dear Friends,

We are in quite a different world. How are you dealing with it? Who is hurting?

My voice is finally coming back to me in many forms. Fear and anger can make you lose it. If you forget to sing, you will not be the singer you dream of. If you forget to speak up for yourself, you will forget to respect yourself. That is key: I respect myself. I have made many positive changes in order to understand the importance of my life.

For many years, I did not think my life mattered all that much. I was alone and felt abandoned. The result was that I quit respecting myself.

People are angry and afraid. It is powerful. It is something that as a child, I thought could be slayed by a dragon or rescued by a hero. As an adult, it makes me wonder what prophecies are being fulfilled. Their country is pushing fear like an IV into the veins of the overweight, overworked, underpaid and under-educated people.

People are not taught how to truly respect themselves. People who feel so strong to defend their honor in a quarrel they could have easily chosen to walk away from are those who are afraid of facing the very foundation of their view of self.

Some have the opposite problem. The ones who cannot look you in the eye; the ones who makes themselves small and choose to hide- I would argue they do not respect themselves either. One example is when someone asks you what you would like to eat at a drive-thru and they answer, "I don't care". Though it has a hint of aggressiveness, the root of the answer says, "I do not know what I want, I am not willing to take the time to find out and I choose to forfeit a decision that benefits me".

Where does the root of the problem lie; In the parents that raise them? In the lack of education they receive? Is it lack of direction in their government? I would suggest that the common American carries a proverbial sack of rocks. Each day, the bag gets bigger. Some days, a rock is taken out; others, a rock is added. Some people have bigger bags than others. The ones who can move to freedom faster are the ones who realize they can take their bag off.

My point is, there are no available resources for people to truly deal with their burdens. The drug epidemic, the alcohol and drug addiction and the violence have no safe place to unmask what they are masking. Take your burdens off. Take the rocks out of your bag and set it down. Walk away from it and move into freedom. Make decisions in your life that influence your goals. Make your goals greater than yourself. Serve something greater than yourself.