The streets laugh at me as I struggle to climb out of the shadows. All around me people say just give in to the inevitable. I feel like I am suffocating sometimes. All over the neighborhood, I see people with broken spirits who are prisoners of forgotten dreams. They wander aimlessly as if they are just waiting for it all to end. It seems the harder that I try to climb the ladder towards the light, the more I get weighed down with all of the problems of the here and now. It is a daily struggle just to survive. Some people turn to playing with a ball in hopes of catching a shooting star out of the dreariness of this life. Others pick up a gun and some drugs and hope for the quick exit. Most get what they want, just not in the way they figured. Every time I get hit, I dig deeper into a book. To some it seems like a pointless waste of time, but I know it holds the key to what I want. It holds the key to my dream, the freedom I so desire, the freedom I believe in. If I can just hold on and get past one more month, one more day, one more moment, I can cross the bridge out of my unchosen place and climb all of the way out into the light, into the freedom I dream of.

One nation prospers and another languishes. The people who run the show set up barriers to our understanding of each other. Some starve while others gorge themselves and become complacent. All the time behind the curtain the strings are pulled like a show full of marionettes. Resources are unevenly distributed, while one place sits on vast treasure but cannot get a slice of bread to eat. Others come in and devour the substance of the poor while complaining about paying for the people they impoverished. Despite the best efforts of many with good intentions, a selfish few create sorrow for the masses. They grow full like a tick while they starve the rest for their own selfish ends. If the people simply were to stop and really look, they would understand that there is plenty to go around and that a warm bed and good meal is all that they require and that is enough.

I saw a stranger standing with a sign. It said please help me, and I drifted in my mind. To a night not so long ago, when I was down on my knees. I was lost and troubled and needed help you see. I met a soldier just the other day, he sat in a wheelchair right next to me. I thought of a time when I could not walk on my own. When I had to be carried because I could not do it alone. Then I saw another person lending a helping hand. I thought of the times that I had been that man. In all of these things, I could see a part of me. I could see the man I was, and that Jesus was always with me.

Stay back, don't cross the imaginary line. Obey the rules and you will be just fine. Conform, become whatever you are told to be. That is how you are kept in check, that is how they control you and me. What if you step over, what if you go to the other side? They will discourage you; they will push you back behind the line. So, what is the point of living if you have to become what others want you to be? Isn't freedom an illusion that they try to sell to you and me. What if one day, we all just say fine! We all have decided that we will not conform, that we will not stay behind the line?

We have been bombed, we have been invaded. We have suffered great tragedies, but we have persevered. We fight among ourselves but do not mistake dissension for weakness. We bicker and quarrel, but when we are threatened we will unite. The rest of the world may go to hell but America will survive

we consider it a mystery why we repeat our history, we wonder why we often blunder and fail. The truth lies in our past, we fail to heed its warnings. We wake up only after disaster has struck us down. In the shambles of our tragedy, we bemoan and opine oh why weren't we warned. When the truth lays before us, it is our own arrogance that destroyed us, because we believed that we did not need to remember what history taught us.

Sorrows and love all through adversity. My life is written in a book for eternity. On each page a day is recorded. Kindness and mercy shown on my journey. Each trial I go through strengthens me. Making me better than I used to be. I reach higher even when I fall. I want to do better and leave goodness behind. Perhaps a better world for others to find. Each day that passes I add another page to the book of my life.