"Why?"

Big Boy has been slowly moving his way through the "Who?" "What?" and now "Whys?" of life. For some time everything was "Where?" then it was "Which?" Now it is "Why?"

Little does he know how fitting this is. There are a lot of "Whys?" floating around our life right now.

As it was recently stated by someone dear to me..."If he can answer that one, he'd make a lot of people happy."

Big Boy's insistent "Why" questions are like nails on the chalk board of my soul for many reasons. First among, I don't ask the question. "Why?" isn't ever at the top of my list. I'm not overly scholarly or investigative. I'm often ok accepting that I don't know how is works or how that happened.

Theologically, I don't think things do happen for a particular reason. Or rather, I don't think God makes things happen for a particular reason.

Right now, I understand how religion and theology can fail to ease our questions. I've had plenty of struggles and "bad things" happen to me and mine over the years...I've pushed questions of faith around and settled down knowing there isn't an answer this side of heaven. I give my "we are the creatures not the Creator" talk during confirmation. I believe it and it actually sits well with me. But right now, as things are shaping up, it isn't good enough.

It isn't that I need to know the actual "Why" of illness and suffering...it is that I want to know how God stands to see creation in this state. If I allow myself to feel even a fraction of the pain and loss I am experiencing, I can't breathe. How then must God feel?

But I have to say, I'm not feeling all that compassionate towards God right now. :)

Big Boy and others may ask, "Why?" about the state of the world, it is truer to my personality, to state demands. "Make it stop." "Make it better." "How DARE you!?"

This is among my less edited posts and as I write, I realize, "How dare you?" is exactly where I am at.

Forget "Why?" no reason would be good enough.