Still No Answer

There doesn't always have to be a rhyme, a reason, a "why" to why something is. As children we grow up asking why and adults push us away or try to explain in language that is more complicated than the question, but one day we finally feel we have found all (or at least most) of the answers to our "whys" and we then turn around to answer the next generation's questions with a pat on the head or encyclopedic pontifications. Sometimes there aren't any answers, though.

When a young baby dies of no seeming cause, there is a why, but no answer. When children are abused, and their fear is unseen by those who can save them, there is a why, but no answer. When refugees in Sudan walk thousands of miles to escape those who kill the only life they have known, there are many whys, but no answers. When a woman finds her husband trading a lifetime of commitment for a moment of emptiness, she asks why but hears no answer. When an elderly man is sent home to die from cancer, or an elderly woman finds out she has breast cancer and had a stroke in the same day, they still ask why but silence echoes no answer. When earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and the swine flu lay claim to so many lives rich with the fabric of being and now stilled in an instant, a collective "why" ascends to heaven and still. . .no answer.

Only a Father Who weeps. . .