By Marie Miller
Clare Bell Creative Commons

“Faced with today’s problems and disappointments, many people will try to escape from their responsibility. Escape in selfishness, escape in sexual pleasure, escape in drugs, escape in violence, escape in indifference and cynical attitudes. I propose to you the option of love, which is the opposite of escape.” -St. John Paul 2

I spent last week in New York City writing, recording, and performing in that crazy but enchanting city. You see the worst and the best of humanity in NYC. This same place produced Catholic Heroes like Dorothy Day and Benedict Groeschel but was also named by New York magazine “The Abortion Capital  of America.”

NYC is a good example of how we are constantly presented with good and evil, light and dark, hope and despair.  Caught in the middle of it all, it is easy to give up hope. It is tempting to retreat to those things JP2 talks about in the quote above. I admit sometimes I am tempted.

My dad always says we are capable of far greater things than we realize. When this life is over will my story be an epic one?  Will I engage in the battle or stand on the side lines? Will I escape or will I love?

Marie MillerMarie Miller
Recording Artist, Singer/Songwriter, Speaker