Why

My daughter can trap me in a round of questions.  Her initial inquiry may vary but when my response is, “No,” she asks, “Why?”  I explain and she again asks, “Why?” Off we go into what feels like an infinite loop – we never get out unless I shut it off.  I realize the futility of our discourse.  There is no satisfaction for either of us.  Even though I long to offer resolution I have not the answer to satiate the why and she both wants reasons and enjoys the game.

At dictionary.com Collins World English Dictionary offers this entry for the adverb why.
                a. for what reason, purpose, or cause?:  why are you here?
                b. (used in indirect questions):  tell me why you’re here.

Today I am the asking child with perpetual need to wonder why?  The difference for me is there is no joy in the game.  I have no desire to trap the recipient of my question in a tangle of queried responses.  I really want to know how come a lot of things occur. 

There is so freaking much tragedy that goes without explanation.  We can certainly begin with September 11, 2001 which is fresh in our hearts today after marking its ten year anniversary yesterday.  Then perhaps start across the globe and bring it on home again - conflict in Somalia, unrest in the Middle East, sex scandals in churches, dishonest corporate practices, abusive and dysfunctional families, unemployment, failed relationships, homelessness, gossip.  

I accept that my vision is a small speck of what is possible and I am limited in perception by human senses and a human lifespan.  But sometimes it sure feels hard to plod along not knowing why suffering exists and how we are to thrive amidst so much unexplained harmful human behavior.

That may be part of the answer to my seeking - human.  That is a variable, isn’t it?  Created in the image and likeness of Love and set on our way to make the best of it.  People imbued with free will and the nature of both good and evil swing the pendulum sometimes.  Grand scale destroyers really make a senseless mark.   I acknowledge the randomness of nature because it has no choice, but the acts of people are where my weary wonder rests today.  Certainly humans don’t control catastrophic weather or natural disasters but people do choose to harm one another or not.  We also can choose to help, to create, to uplift. 

Perhaps my needing to know reasons is a piece of my pain puzzle.  Will it ever all make sense?  No.  Why?

Why

Love, what can you teach
me without the volume
of pain, is there no thing

to gain another way
to say I’m strong, Love
enough to take your lesson

with question for what
about the answers I need
reason or cause, a test

eye cannot help but look
toward reprieve as the rest
of the story we are writing.