The Question

As young children, we all begin to ask one of the most fundamentally important questions of all time--Why?

Everything has a "why"--a question, opportunity, answer, or reason. And if you believe that we're all part of a much bigger puzzle, then each of our itty-bitty pieces matter because the picture is incomplete without every single piece in it.

This is the reason for our questions--why we must ask "why". We cannot fit into our place until we know why we're there.

Some people were born lucky enough to somehow be convicted of their purpose and some of us spend decades searching for it. Sometimes Fate works in our favor, but then sometimes she deals a cruel hand. When that happens, it feels as if Fate toys with us--dangling dreams and passions just beyond our reach.

I'm not a fan of Fate. She eats up the freedom to choose.

Maybe the belief that I am entitled to live my dreams is my hubris. Maybe that is my real problem, and maybe that's why Fate is harsh with me. Maybe I must learn to accept rather than to dream. Maybe I must learn to do instead of hope. Maybe I must learn to survive rather than soar. Maybe I must learn to stop fighting Fate.

Maybe I must allow myself to be broken so I can rise above.

I was raised in a faith that taught that Heaven is the perfect answer to Earth's travesty--that all things wrong here would be corrected there. Yet this doesn't entirely make sense to me. That continuous belief in a hereafter that fixes everything tends to cause people to forget about the possibilities for healing and correction that are at our very fingertips. I want to live here and now, to breath it all in, and to know that I matter here. To matter only in Heaven isn't enough.

It is a bitter thing to sit in an invisible prison where the unforeseen potential is being held hostage to circumstances.

Where do we go when education can't save us, our families can't help us, intelligence is not enough, skills can't provide food or shelter, our prayers refuse to formulate, desires are snuffed out by necessity...

Where do we go when we don't know why???