“Sometimes…”

Sometimes it looks as if the road to justice is unattainable. Sometimes it looks as if greed and corruption will rule the day because when cast as shadows on the wall, justice and injustice are one.

Sometimes it feels like we are going through the motions of life. We go to work, pay our bills, go to church, grow old and then fade into oblivion, forever sleep--death. But there is more to life than the aforementioned.

Sometimes it feels like our society lacks the capacity of compassion and sympathy. When civic activist Joaquin Rivera dies on the emergency room floor and then is robbed, when insurance companies deny children and adults’ healthcare because of a pre-existing illness, and when a husband knowingly pricks his wife with a sewing needle tainted with HIV of his own blood--is apathy the new compassion?

Sometimes it feels like educating our children is a useless cause. Career politicians charge that not enough money is invested in public school education. However, the same career politicians vote “no” to increase funding to improve public school education. Parents argue that their children are not properly receiving the type of academic instruction and resources to compete globally and yet the same parents are not actively engaged in improving their children’s future.

Sometimes it feels like we are our worst enemy. We engage in behaviors that are counter-productive to our physical and spiritual growth. Whether it is “toxic relationships,” apathy, complacency, violence, drug and alcohol, and other addictions, we continue to implode and in the process negatively affect our family and the lives of others.

Sometimes it’s about standing and defending the rights of others, sometimes it’s about giving without receiving, sometimes it’s about standing alone for the greater good of society, sometimes it’s about respect when swimming in the ocean of disrespect and hatred, and sometimes it’s about peace in the storm of aggression and chaos.

In the end, though, we must “always” be held accountable and responsible for our actions because sometimes individually, we will be the outcome for a peaceful or chaotic society.





Anthony P. Johnson, Author