From the time a human being comes to the age of reason, he or she will be confronted with error and truth. Because we are human we have the ability to weight them both, and to choose between them; all this from a young age — which is why it is so important to teach a set of high values to children, because these choices are what will ultimately form individual character. If at sometime, we glance into the mirror and don’t like the person we see looking back at us, it is still possible to change. Our ability to decide never leaves us. We will live and die with the choices we make.
Our main concern in forming good character for ourselves and our children should first be recognizing the difference between error and Truth. I attempt to address this in my stories; stories that begin in the human heart when Truth is exchanged for the lies of the moment.
It is a human choice when hatred replaces love because my new enemy doesn’t look or think like me.
It is a choice when anger becomes a fist to the face of a wife, or child, or friend.
It is a choice when a hidden hand steals because what it has seems not enough.
It is a choice when every hunger–lust, greed, power–must be satisfied.
It is a choice when my place in the sun is secured by lies and dishonesty toward my fellow human beings.
It is a choice to destroy innocent human life.
It is also a choice to do nothing and allow recognized evil to continue.
As a human being we not only HAVE choices, we are RESPONSIBLE for the choices we make. The way of our created world is not toward an anything goes attitude, or a society without common decency.
Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it’s up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be. — Ayn Rand
If our choices do not make us feel good about ourselves, then by the standard set in our hearts, they are failings. So, after our failings, what is possible? Contrition, forgiveness, and redemption–or a puffed-up pride that will not allow us to admit that we have failed, that we ought to forgive, or that we need to be redeemed?
My stories are Southern Gothic fiction containing those themes–stories about what it means to be an imperfect person living in an imperfect world.
There may be a time in life when one is tired of everything and feels as if all one does is wrong, and there maybe some truth in it- do you think this is a feeling one must try to forget and to banish, or is it ‘the longing for God,’ which one must not fear, but cherish to see if it may bring us some good? Is it ‘the longing for God’ which leads us to make a choice which we never regret? Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil. –Vincent van Gogh
Translating a World on the Edge 