Questions

I sometimes ask myself “why do I even think about such things?” A conclusion I have reached? “I just do”. There is stuff I think about and when it all comes down to it, I will never understand. Even that conclusion though is the result of giving a matter thought.

I have felt for a long time there is nothing threatening about questions. Quite the opposite. Questions often indicate openness.
A willingness to admit I may not know all the answers, but it does not stop me asking them. I guess it comes down to me being a very finite person and I am trying to think of the infinite. A great recipe really for making my head hurt.

I had a laugh the other day. Melbournite’s were literally quite rattled. Victoria had just had an earthquake. It came on top of covid, violent protests, damaging winds and lock downs. A security guard said to an ABC reporter, “if the locusts appear, I’m outta here.”

I was wondering about some really bad things that have happened. Like the tsunami that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The earthquake in Haiti in around 2010 that took over 100,000 people. Even the fires in Greece a few years ago where people perished because they were trapped, or the floods in Germany that came on so suddenly people died unexpectedly.

A lot of people blame God and say it is evidence of what an ogre he is. It raises questions for me that send me scurrying to source data. I do not want to make decisions based on hearsay or speculations, but what I glean for myself. What I have found satisfies me.

There seems to me to be a real effort to take God out of the picture. People are setting up their own rules and the famous song “I did it my way,” has become our theme song.

It is an imperfect analogy, but it was the closest that came to the way it appears to be for me. I thought about a policeperson. To a serial lawbreaker they are an ogre. They always turn up and spoil the fun. What the serial lawbreaker never sees is the policeman and his family. The policeperson loving their kids. Taking them to sport of a Saturday morning. Just trying to hustle up a living like the rest of us. The laws are not in place to spoil my fun but for my protection. Serial lawbreakers see only the consequences of their own actions and everything that happens of evidence of the meanness of the police.

For me that is similar to the way I see it. There are consequences to taking God out of the picture. He has a family. He loves his kids. He treats me like any parent would, advising me there are things I need to stay away from - not to spoil my fun, but for my protection. I ignore that advice to my peril.

They reckon the same sun that hardens the clay melts the snow. Some get harder with each thing that happens. Some like me acknowledge that maybe I have got it wrong. Either way I live with the consequences.