I realized that the only way to effectuate change in them was to effectuate change in me, and in order to accomplish that I had to do what I termed “take an inward look at an outward expression of myself.” In essence, I had to see the true image of myself – as a person – before I could recognize the true image of anyone else. In so doing, I came to another realization, that the same battle that I was fighting, they were fighting too. They had an obscure vision of themselves, and they were looking at – and judging – others from that point of obscurity. We were lashing out at each other because we were all in various degrees of pain, so there was none that could help the other. It’s kinda like what the book of Revelation tells us about the last days, when people will run to the rocks and the mountains, and they will cry out we’re hiding too.

The agony comes because there is no rest for the weary. The perilous mind is that of a man on a perilous journey and for as long as the journey continues, the mind will continue to writhe in agony. Another thing I came to understand in that wilderness experience is that pain is a seed, and like any other seed, it does contain within itself the elements of its own existence. We hurt, thus we inflict pain. We inflict pain, thus we hurt; it is a pattern of behavior that sets the stage for self- destruction and total annihilation, because as Joyce Meyer so aptly puts it, “Hurting people hurt people. Therefore, the cycle will never end until we learn to PRESS PASS THE PAIN into PURPOSE and take the time to sow new – and better – seeds in our garden of life.