What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

The sojourner has suffered great pain and distress this week. And that has led to a very contemplative state of mind for the moment. This might possibly be a post more appropriate for awakenings , or even granny , but it just FEELS more like a sojourner moment.

Three people are caught in a flood – a mother and her two small children, now hanging precariously from the trees. You are the one lowered from the helicopter to save them. The flood waters are rising swiftly and you and the mother both seem to know, there will barely be enough time to save two – one must be left to fate, be it good or bad. Which two would YOU choose? And if the mother were TRULY a ‘mother,’ which two would she HAVE you choose?

No one would ever choose to be faced with such a decision. But many choices come our way in life that are not of our choosing. Pain and disappointment are a part of life for every living being – no one is immune. I suppose that is basically because we are a perfect creation that has yet to realize and appropriate our inherent perfection. Hence the worlds we create around us are as imperfect as the creators of them.

It’s not so much whether or not pain comes – for if you are alive in this world, it most assuredly WILL – but rather what you do with it, or allow it to do with YOU, that ultimately makes the difference in its effects. Are your own foolish choices responsible for your pain? Or does it really MATTER if your pain is deserved or not? Pain comes to all, whether resulting from our own choices or the choices of others. When it comes, in whatever form, for whatever reason, whether just or unjust, we each have a choice. The easiest route is to succumb to it and allow it to defeat you. Be miserable. Remain miserable. Pity yourself and whine and blame everything and everyone in the world. And in your misery, you will make every effort to bring misery, suffering and yet MORE pain to every other life you touch. You will contribute nothing to the world around you. You will only take – take the joy, take the love, take the light, take the sustenance, take the very LIFE out of every living thing you touch, until there is no more. And you will never GIVE anything to anyone in return, except more pain and misery, because your pain and misery is all you have. You will remain on your host like a parasite, until you either kill it, until you’ve sucked out so much life that it has no more to offer you, or until the wiser of the hosts plucks you off and flushes you down the toilet with the rest of life’s refuse.

Then there is the one that chooses another path. You don’t run from pain (much as you may DESIRE to), you don’t hide from it, you don’t deny it, you don’t blame others. You just accept it as a part of the journey. And you purpose to overcome it. You purpose to take all that negative energy and pass it through the light of the life within you and transform it to positive energy. You purpose not to stumble over the boulders in your path, but to climb them to reach higher ground. You take what was intended for evil and use it to create good – to build strength, character, resolve, wisdom, purpose. You learn to give, even sacrifice – to both deserving and undeserving alike – yet not foolishly, but with a wisdom that brings PROFIT from the giving, not abuse. Because you know your purpose, you know you must also have boundaries that protect your ability to provide for that purpose. You cannot help the one who is hell-bent on destruction – destruction not only of themselves but also of all others foolish enough to allow their lives to be effected by this destroyer. But you can, you MUST, protect the innocent, who depend on you to protect them, and who look to you for guidance towards a better way, a higher path.

What is at the root of a human soul that makes it what it is? What is it that makes the one choose the high road…another to choose the lower? Do we really have a choice? Or are we destined to make the choices we make? It’s a question I ponder so often. Any similar thoughts and pondering from the peanut gallery?