Wiser at 50? Life STILL Seems So Unfair

I remember as a child that many times when I did not get my way, or something did not turn out the way I wanted, I told anyone who would listen, "That's not fair!"  Usually the person listening was my mother, and she would say, "Sweetie, life isn't always fair."  I have to confess that at the time that answer did not satisfy a young child very well.  But life went on, and the longer it went, the more "unfair" it seemed.  There were all sorts of "unfairness."  I was never the most popular kid in school...that was unfair.  Other kids had more and better things than I did.  That was SO unfair.  And sometimes some other guy got the girl I wanted...that was REALLY unfair! Granted, I did not have a car at the time, and no driver's license either, but still, it was unfair.  Then something happened, and I had my first REAL understanding of how unfair life could be.

Sometime around 1977 there was a terrible automobile accident.  Three friends of mine were in the car although none of them were legally old enough to drive at the time.  One of the young men was killed, the second severely injured and permanently disabled.  The third escaped with only a minor injury.  They were all doing the same thing at the time, which was drinking alcohol and racing around on a country road.  I was so glad that only one friend was killed, but I thought it was so unfair that ANYONE was killed.  Another friend was no longer able to play sports in school.  That was so unfair.  I know all of us have seen or experienced many things in life that seemed so unfair, and in fact these things WERE unfair.  But life went on, and so did the unfair things.

In my twenties I got "wise."  I mean that I had heard so many times from my parents, other older adults, and even from my peers, that life was "unfair" and that just the way it was.  I had also read in the Good Book that the Lord had planned our days and counted them even before we were born (see Psalms 139:13-16).  There are other Psalms and other Bible verses that impart essentially the same thought: God or the Creator or whatever you choose to call IT knew our days before we were born because he planned our days, the number of our years, etc.  In other words, our Creator predestined us and knew before we were even born what the years would bring to each one of us.  Then one day I made the statement that if God PLANNED our days, then he knew what all good...and bad...would come our way.  And further, if He were a "good God," why would he choose to LET the bad happen to us?  When I expressed this idea that day, I was quickly brought back in line by some "elders" or more mature Christians chosen to lead the church, or care for the "flock."  I was told that God brought the good things and that Satan brought the bad.  Or occasionally God needed to teach us a lesson, and somehow it took a "bad" event to do it.  A short time later my second-born child died shortly after birth.  I was so mad at God, but everyone told me the same thing.  God only brought good, therefore Satan must have brought the bad. That answer seemed sound, and satisfied me for some years to come.  That brings me to "today."

Today I am over fifty years old, and I realized just recently that life is STILL just as unfair as it ever was.  But I realized something else as well.  I realized that my "pat" answer of thirty years ago was not serving me very well as a post-fifty year old.  I also realized that none of my questions were any different from those of thirty years ago, or even from those of my childhood.  I am still so often times confused and dismayed at the unfairness of life.  I think back to a sweet girl I knew in high school, and still know, who lost her mother not too long ago, and then lost another close relative in a tragic criminal attack.  There was another sweet girl from the same high school who married someone she loved with all her heart.  Yet that person turned on her and murdered her.  Where is the fairness in all this?  As I work at a local hospital I see all kinds of unfair things.  For instance, I see a family lose a young child to a common childhood disease.  I see another family who did not lose their child; instead the child, who looks like a fifteen year-old, but because of a terrible and rare disabling disease, is actually twenty-five years old and totally disabled.  He was born with the disease that robbed him of his childhood, and adulthood as well, and robbed his parents of the joy that this young man could have provided.  I know the parents love him, as they proved while they devoted themselves to his every need.  Yet what sorrow they must have felt for him and endured for him over the years.  Again, where is the fairness?  Why was this family selected to receive this tragic circumstance?

Wise King Solomon, the Ecclesiastes writer, tells us that all is vanity, and that the best a person can do is to serve the Lord in all the person does.  Solomon, though, brings my query back in a complete circle.  Again I have to ask, where is the fairness of it all, when some people spend their lives serving God in the way they think pleases Him, and reap nothing but sorrow?  Others serve God and reap silver and gold, or reap other good things.  And still others live their level worst, and still seem to reap the good, not the evil they themselves sow in other people's lives.

This is my rant for the day.  As I contemplate this idea of unfairness, I can only say that I will dwell on it, meditate on it.  But I don't know when, if ever, I will come up with an answer that satisfies me or anyone else.  I can say that I will write more on this later...

If you have come up with an answer, a philosophy, that satisfies you, I hope you will share it with me...still seeking to know.    As for me, I have realized that I am no wiser now that I am older.  And I realize that I no longer "have all the answers."

 

Michael Clarke Duncan Walked "The Last Mile"

In recent days we received the sad news of the passing of a familiar and well-liked actor, Michael Clarke Duncan.  Mr. Duncan played in "Armageddon" along with Bruce Willis, as well as smaller parts in smaller movies, and in TV commercials.  Most recently Mr. Duncan played the book-reading bartender on "Finders," clever spin off of the "Bones" series.  But Mr. Duncan is best known for his role as John Coffey, a Black man wrongly convicted of murder in rural Louisiana during the Great Depression.  John Coffey/Duncan was a man of great size and strength but who turned out to be a gentle giant.  He was innocent of the charges against him, but preferred death to the prospect of eternal life in a world full of hate and fear.  Eventually Tom Hanks, the superintendent of the "Green Mile" discovers that Coffey has a special gift, and that he is innocent of the rape and murder of the two little girls.  Just before his execution, John Coffey uses his gift to bring two evil men, a sadistic prison guard and a twisted murderer, to their own special kind of justice.  He also transfers his gift to Tom Hanks, who tells the story of John Coffey and The Green Mile in flash back.  Michael Clarke Duncan was a special actor and will certainly missed in the entertainment world, and by this blogger as well.  I wish comfort to his family.  RIP Michael Clarke Duncan.     
 

September 11th

Today, as as we have for the past ten years, many of us all over the United States and around the world paused to remember that fateful and terrible day in 2001.  I am not among the number that lost friends and loved ones that day, but I hold out those people in my prayers and my thoughts.  I fall into the category that the vast majority of Americans do, that of saddened neighbor and fellow American, kin in spirit to those lost on that infamous day that started out so quiet and so beautiful.  I know in West Texas on that particular morning the skies were of the bluest blue.  I believe that beautiful blue came to represent the steadfast resolve that Americans came to feel in the face of the most tragic and infamous day since the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.  Americans came together and united against a very elusive foe, while at the same time refusing to cower in some safe shelter.  No, instead Americans pursued the perpetrators, capturing some, killing others, and finally killing Osama, Son of Ladin, himself, the one believed to be the author of the 9/11 attacks.

Today, we pause once again to remember the fallen heroes and the fallen "ordinary" Americans who died both on the ground and in the various aircraft.  Of the people I talked with today, they to a person could remember exactly where they were and what they were doing as the news of the tragedy filtered its way across the nation.  Whether at work, driving down the highway, in school, or at home, that moment was burned indelibly into our lives.  The terror, the anxiety, all the questions, were brought to mind today.  The feelings, the memories, the anger, were all suddenly fresh, suddenly just as strong, just as real as on that day in 2001. This blog will be a short one...there is not much to say that has not be said and repeated by all the news services today.  I just wanted to add my own remembrance of all the brave Americans who lost their lives that day, all the equally brave Americans who did their best to rescue to their neighbors and friends.  I salute all these people from the bottom of my heart.  Many questions remain to this day concerning the why's, how's. and who's of that terrible day, but there is no question that all our neighbors who fell that day are true heroes, true Americans, true human embodiments of those great colors - Red, White, and Blue - those great colors that never fade, and never run.  I am proud to be an American, and proud to say to our brave departed friends, We are still here, Still strong, Still Standing...and we still, and will always, hold your memory in our hearts.  God Bless the Red, White, and Blue.