WHAT IF AND WHY

 We, or at least much of us, perhaps most of us, have been the bouncing keyboard for those little ones with whom we walk hand in hand. Why is the sky blue? Why does it get dark at night? Why can't I have ice cream? What if I said no? What if I didn't look both ways and why and why and why. Endless streams of questions about the world, about people, about their places in this strange world to which they are adjusting.

When we tell them I don't know, unless we have a backup answer or suggestion, then we have made the first dent of many dents in their evaluation of the adults in their lives. They don't necessarily know all things though it was once presumed so by that child. Perhaps we can ask somebody else. Maybe we can look it up in a book or check on the computer.

 We can think about an answer that we think works. This is perhaps the best response if we are not sure of the answer. It teaches them through experience in a calm, mostly painless manner that the answers are not always out there. Sometimes you have to seek and dig for them in the most strenuous effort. More importantly the search for answers can give rise to other questions or scratching an itch that had not been there before. And thus, the world progresses, or so we hope.

However, I think we are now in the time when we are too lazy to actually seek and find for ourselves the real answers. We need to resist taking the easy way out and accepting the false ones ginned up by those who oppose independent thought. By those who want their own opinions to be the answers for everyone else's questions. Better yet give answers that will stop that questioning. That is ever so much better for a tyrant's rule over a nation.

But what if there are enough of us out there who insist on finding answers to questions which demand answers for with that answer or a viable path to it, the earth is in great peril in both its physical composition and for all who live on it and within its oceans and skies. We are all affected by the world around us. Both humans and animals. In fact, many of the species of the world are far better at sensing approaching ominous danger and react to it.

 Humans not so much and ironically, are generally the cause of so many neither problems of this world: existential, physical, emotional, moral. Choose any field and there we are. Some of us are trying to improve, to think deeper, better, and to come up with possibilities for a more viable future. Others smell not in the air and see and hear nought that should trouble them. They should have a plethora of what if and why questions. But they think that willful denial will keep them safe. Know not - worry not. They engage in massive denial and foolishly believe in magic answers ginned up by the lie tellers of the world.

Now we need to look around. First, take the physical world. So, I pick up a paper, and I see more about how France and Spain are being scorched not by a war between people but between people, mankind, and the necessities of preservation for life of humanity and the earth itself. I read yet another horrifying story. A massive earthquake in Japan.  Tornadoes shredding homes. Floods and drought forcing people out of their homes. Grave danger and massive uncertainty over huge swaths of the world.

So, what if we simply close our eyes and call this world gone wild a passing phenomenon? What if we ignore the underlying causes, deny them vehemently. Insult and punish those who say, no, it is otherwise. Hear the truth and know what we have been doing. We, mankind, have been destroying our own homes. We refuse to accept responsibility. We refuse to accept that in a headlong plunge to perhaps make things better, to have always 'more', somewhere along the line we made a wrong turn We forgot that for every action there is a reaction. For every consequence there is a cause. For every short-sighted plan, we became deaf to the cries of the vandalized Earth.

Even worse is the perennial truth of the message to be found in Shakespeare's plays as well as in many other pieces of literature throughout the ages. When man is unstable and the world is plagued with problems from a weird and unnatural Nature, we will find that man is also awry. Behaving in massively, grossly inhumane, thoughtless and cruel and uncaring manner towards others of our species, to the other living creatures of this planet.  Estranged, unusual paths for all. 

This joined malfunctioning has been noted by many and ignored by even many more from the beginning of time. We have continued to ignore it, to discount it even as we deal with terrific consequences. It has been a theme throughout the millennia. In the movie Odysseus when the gods are angry, as mankind has forgotten the moral laws of humanity set down by these gods, damage their realms and go beyond the red lines, the gods sow their anger at mankind which then suffers from catastrophes of Nature. 

Which one causes the other? How are they related? Are we denying that relationship? Do we anger the ruling gods even more by thumbing our noses at them and their concerns?

Now follow the thread all the way up to modern times. When we have attempted to relandscape the Earth's physical presence; when we challenge the Power ruling the skies, the heavens, the Earth, the oceans, all that is within those various tracts, the Power sees all. Though there have been huge doses of patience and forgiveness, inevitably the violations are too much, and the Power sends warning through Nature. 

Finally, the full anger and the disappointment of that Power is fiercely released. The consequences, the catastrophes upon the earth and upon humanity are clearly evident. Yet we continue to deny that connection, ignoring the consequences of their behavior, of their denial of truth. History is replete with periods of grossly misbehaving humanity punctuated by Nature gone rogue. Or is it not so rogue after all?

There used to be a commercial wherein the punchline was that it is not good to trifle with Mother Nature. That "Mother Nature” is only one aspect of the Power we know as the Lord Above even as many of us have given so many different names to it.

What if we have indeed angered that Power?

What if that Power has lost patience as people damage all that He has given them?

What if that Power has decided enough?! Perhaps it is time, once again, to try again, to wipe out the majority of mankind and just set up another trial.

The why should all be clear as glass, but are not, due to the deliberate smearing of it on the inside and without. We cannot see through to the truth of it all. We claim that it is through our strength, our power, our efforts to make a better world for all of humanity, even as we swim through fetid waters of falsehood and defiance. That defiance and denial inevitably reach an intolerable level and well, pick up a Bible, a history text and see what happens over and over again.

 We persist on the self-destructive path.

Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

All the while we deny the truth. We continue to violate that wonderful gift given to us. We continue to mistreat and wage war on each other.

And if we continue to do the same, why should we expect anything different, anything other than what has been going on since time began?

Why? Oh, we know the answer to that.

What if ..............