Why Is This?
WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, I wrote a poem titled “Why Is This” that ended with the question, Why is this? The poem was just another assignment in English class, but I still remember it because for the rest of the year whenever my English teacher would make a point, he would smile and look at me until I squirmed and then ask the class, “Why is this?” It spread like a pandemic. Soon friends (and then some) ended conversations with me by loudly asking, “Why is this?” Emotions help us remember.
Back then we studied history without realizing we were in the middle of history. The Vietnam War was raging, injustice abounded, and Martin Luther King Jr., Betty Friedan, Malcolm X, bell hooks, Muhammad Ali, and Nelson Mandela were busy demonstrating courage and the desire to create justice and express love. We watched the protesters but did not know the deep reasons for their discontent, nor sometimes did they. Granted, there was a lot going on. Drugs were abundant and feelings of melancholy and hopelessness justified the choice to drop out, get drunk, get high, or move to a life unengaged from society and its need for our engaged presence. My poem “Why Is This” was about all that.
Today, as a Honorary Professor at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, I look out my window and see red-shirted protesters and the same disconnect.
What are spiritual folks to do with all the evil, social poison, and fear out there? Why don’t we seem to do anything?
“What are spiritual folks to do with all the evil, social poison, and fear out there? Why don’t we seem to do anything?”
Why do we think we are exercising spirituality when we go to church, join meditation groups, face east, read uplifting books, do yoga, or attend a book club or movie-and-popcorn night? Why does it seem we can always make choices for our own comfort while billions of humans need our love and support? Why is this?
I suspect some readers will find this uncomfortable. I also know that we must love ourselves, and being a member of society sometimes compels us to attend religious or cultural rituals and community acts. Nevertheless, the world is burning. Why don’t we take a few breaths and think about our choices? I, too, find this uncomfortable. My muse says to hit delete on this essay and start over with something happy and inspiring. But discomfort is okay.
I live in my nice, safe home a few miles away from extreme poverty. Last night, the founder of a children’s hospice in South Africa spoke to a local Rotary club I was attending. She came in search of funding and explained how, with a staff of two, she takes care of 283 children dying of cancer, HIV, tuberculosis, and a host of other painful and ugly sicknesses that will take these children “home.” She spoke of the sadness and the attempts to support the siblings, parents, and extended families—people plagued by poverty and a lack of education and time. As the meeting broke up, and the last Rotarian was walking out, she turned to this caregiver and said, “I just have to go home and relax. Your talk was so overwhelming, I just want to cry.”
I stayed because I was curious, and I asked the woman what keeps her going. “It is who I am,” she said. “God did not take me when I got sick. I am here for a reason. How can I not serve those children?” I wiped a tear from my cheek and thought, Why is this?
I would love to hear your Why Is This? comments. Contact me here.
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