This city is ours

I find myself wondering a lot about what makes us who we are. Is it our family, who nurture us (hopefully) till we grow old enough to stand on our own two feet, or is it our friends, who we spend much of our lives with? Are personalities programmed into us before we're born, or is it up to us to become good, to walk the right roads and stop to help in all the right places?

Which brings me to something else - it's all well and good to dwell on the nice things. Everyone dwells on nice things every once in a whole (if you're me almost all the time). But who's to blame when things go wrong? Who's to blame when the parents are alcoholics, abusive, neglectful, etc? Who's to blame when the parents are the best parents in the world but the child isn't? If goodness is programmed into us, does that mean that we all have the ability to be bad as well?

[And can I be the one to sacrifice
To grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow?]

I believe that all humans are born to be good, essentially. I believe that God makes us that way. I believe He does everything in His power to stop us falling into the wrong hands. But there are things in society that seduce people. Images of skinny minny models that make up 2 percent of the world's population have suddenly become what is recognised as the world's standard of "beautiful" - bones and all.

I'm almost too afraid to believe in the Devil, in Lucifer himself. The thought that one could be so evil as to be tossed from Heaven from God, who loves everything and everything, is too terrifying to even comprehend. The idea that the Devil is the one who corrupted Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein is something I'd rather not linger over. Both men were evil, pure and simple, they were out for themselves.

What kind of a person are you if you're not willing to stop and help somebody? If you can't bring yourself to show to another that there's some good left in the world, that there's a whole lot of it but you have to look to see it?

[So I've been wonderin'
Who will be there to take my place
When I'm gone, you'll need love
To light the shadows on your face]

And I feel for my friends who haven't yet discovered this. I want to help them but it's not something you can force someone to do. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, as they say. I can't make them see that there's more to life than their favourite bands, or how much they hate school (I don't understand hating school). I can't make them see that the marvels of the world don't lie in society but they're on the fringes - things like tigers and antelope and gorillas and beautiful wild things that are as fierce as they are beautiful and as frightening as they are calming.

I can't make them understand what I feel, or why. But I can tell them what I feel and why, and hope that someday they remember all those things I ever said and realise, hopefully, that I was right, that you don't have to go to the city to see something amazing because all you have to do is stop and look at a flower and it's right in front of you.

[Well I hope there's someone out there
Who can bring me back to you]

I also can't make them see that helping yourself means helping others. Those who think prayer is a waste of time are obviously fools, and the Devil obviously has their tongue; who's to say it doesn't work? The only waste of time are these people telling people it's a waste of time, as anybody who has faith won't take the time to consider it, because their belief is so beautiful and pure it can't be tainted by words of doubt.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to be a good person. I don't want to be remembered because I sang or danced or went to war or did whatever. I want to be remembered for being good, in whatever form that may be - whether I'm remembered because I'm the only one who helps Sister Joan load her trolley or remembered because I jumped in front of a bullet heading for a child, or their mother or father.

This is a city. My life? His existence in my life? It's a city of thought and emotion and somehow I want to share it with the world. I want everyone to know that I feel like I could lift a skyscraper, I want them to know that He is my saviour.

Accepting God into my heart has been one of the best things I've ever done. Thanks to Bleah Briann who helped me realise that He's the truth.

[Well I can fly
But I want His wings
I am strong even on my own
But from Him I never want to part]

-a solitary blue.