Website owner:  James Miller

Walking a solitary road

  
   A young boy or girl knows that if they want to be part of a 
   group that drinks, they have to drink.  If they want to be part 
   of a group that parties, they have to party.  If they  want to 
   be part of a group that uses bad language, they have to use bad 
   language.  If they want to be part of a group that engages 
   in a certain kind of behavior, they have to participate in 
   that behavior.  If they want to be accepted by some particular 
   group they have to participate in that group's behavior.  They 
   know all that by instinct.  They know what they must do to be 
   liked and accepted.  They must conform to the attitudes, 
   outlooks and values of the group they wish to be accepted into.  
   If a young person looks around and sees that everyone is 
   drinking, partying and using bad language he knows he has a 
   choice.  He can either join them or walk a lonely road.  The 
   young person who decides within himself that he will not drink, 
   that he will be a total abstainer, knows there will be a price 
   for that, there will be consequences for himself.  The 
   teetotaler is aware that he has freely chosen a path that 
   necessarily makes him a loner, an outcast, an object of 
   ridicule and scorn, to a large portion of society.  The young 
   person who has determined within himself to take the route of 
   never using low, profane or bad language knows there will be 
   consequences.  He knows he cannot ever be really accepted by 
   that large portion of society that does these things.  He knows 
   he will walk a lonely road.  The young person with scruples, 
   high personal standards, integrity who looks at the crowd and 
   has moral objections to their behavior has a choice:  he can 
   maintain his standards and principles and walk a lonely road or 
   he can give them up and join the crowd.  

   A young person knows that one must either go with the crowd and 
   be one of them or have the courage and strength to stand alone.  
   The young person who chooses a path of strict principle in 
   regard to drinking, smoking, low language, etc. knows what he 
   is doing.  He knows he has chosen to buck the crowd rather than 
   go with it.  He knows he has chosen a lonely path, a solitary 
   path.  He knows he has freely chosen a way that will bring upon 
   himself ridicule and rejection and ostracism.  He knows that 
   you cannot have both the approval of the crowd and of God.  You 
   have to choose.  You have to have the strength to stand alone, 
   to walk alone.  You have to be willing to accept ostricism and 
   rejection.  The crowd doesn't like the person who doesn't go 
   along with it.  The drinkers and partying don't want a non-
   drinker around when they are partying.  He is a wet blanket, a 
   kill-joy.  Those whose minds and language are gutter don't 
   like those who don't accept their language, mind and humor.  
   The person of integrity, the person of moral standards who 
   objects to the moral depravity of the crowd walks a solitary 
   road.  He lives on a different wavelength.  He is a different 
   species, a creature from another planet, a creature from an 
   alien culture. 

   What induces a person to walk a solitary road?  Well, 
   conscience, fear of God, love of God.  But yet it is not really 
   a solitary road.  God is with him.  God is his friend.  And he 
   is his own friend.  He has two true friends: God and himself. 


   May 2008