A MILLION JOURNEYS...

A MILLION DAYS…

I have not done this for a while. I guess it has a lot to do with the quiet inside that I have been experiencing off late. For many years I have searched for peace and love. And as the cliché would have it, in all the wrong places.

We often travel through life and we seek to express ourselves in finding that voice that is unique and is truly original. We sacrifice what is so inherently part of our make-up in the pursuit of authenticity. We so wish to be the creators of original thought and action that we forget that we are all somehow interlinked and that many have gone before us and that the thoughts we think and the feelings we feel and the actions we do have been done before.

We have immense difficulty separating the body and the soul. The body that is merely the vessel that carries the soul. The soul that gives the thought of life and therefore existence. Both must be fed. The body with nutrients and the soul with willful thought.

We are born and we die. These are two truths that occur daily. And in between we live life. We are socialized all in a particular manner and we operate within a particular paradigm. We are emotional beings and 9 times out of 10 we make decisions based on emotion. We might be calculated in certain instances but for the most part the way we were socialized and how we were schooled teaches us how we must react to life and whatever is thrown in our path. Whether we make good or bad decisions we will first consider the individual and then the group. When we have families and extended social units we would consider them first, but for the most part the decision will inadvertently have an impact on us as individuals. We assume the collective outcomes and personalize it.

For the most part we are selfish individuals. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. We need to be able to care for ourselves, love ourselves and give to ourselves before we can do so to others. While this might sound harsh we have to look to ourselves first. We only truly begin to appreciate others when we appreciate ourselves.

Many of us have difficulty truly loving ourselves. Many of us have immense problems with feeding our souls and would rather feed the body. This is why we have such rampant consumerism in our society; this is why we choose to accumulate things instead of feeding our souls.

We all have different believe systems, but the fundamental precepts of any religious or spiritual believe system is that we must acknowledge a creator. That we should live in love and peace. That we should love others. That we should do good instead of evil.

We often seek solace in God when we are down and out. When life is good we are too busy living the good life to remember God, thus we neglect the soul. And when we neglect the soul we set aside the basic precepts of love. When we do this we have only one person in mind and that is the individual.

It took me a long time to realize that I do not have to do life, alone. It took me a long time to realize that society and what is considered acceptable behavior is infact far removed from the nutrition that my soul so much yearned for. And for many years storms raged inside of me. I was always running out of time. Not enough time in the day to consume. Never stopping for a moment to listen to what my soul had required.

So in His infinite wisdom God came and gave me time. He came and removed all the material trappings that stood in my path to Him and peace. He gave me time to move closer to Him. To learn to love and appreciate my son, again. To learn and love my family again. To make peace with myself and my past. To open my mind to the possibilities of doing good and helping others simply because I could. To walk in humility and see all those people on the street that I just passed without ever looking in their eyes. To truly appreciate my sobriety and the road I have travelled. To pray and not just speak empty words. To feed my soul everyday and to say thank you for small miracles. He allowed me to fall in love again and to look forward to this moment I find myself in.

There is so much more. When I look at the sky and I feel the sun on my face, I am grateful. When I see my extended family and see that for the first time in a long while a measure of trust has been rebuilt, I smile and say thank you. When I hear God speak and allow Him to live in my life I am happy.

I find that in the simplicity of goodness and love we find happiness and that we can only find within and sharing it without wanting anything in return.

But this is a journey that will continue for the rest of my life and I pray that I will have the insight to simply do God’s will and set my will aside. And in love I pray that all that has a piece of my heart will be able to share in this journey…

GAH (the truthseeker)

13:07:2010