By Edwin Cooney
The question is so compelling, it’s almost instinctive! Yet, as a psychological or spiritual
aid, it is almost useless as an immediate antidote to our concerns. The question I’m referring to is “why?”
Adult -- “Okay little one, it’s bedtime!”
Little one -- “Why?”
Adult -- “If you sleep well tonight, you’ll be strong
tomorrow!”
Little one -– “Why?”
Adult -- “Because little boys and girls need rest to grow
big and strong!”
Little one -- “Why?”
Adult -- “Well, because we’re made that way!”
Little one -- “Why?
Adult (under his breath, of course) – “Damn it! Monday Night
Football starts in ten minutes and I haven’t even gotten out the beer and
potato chips yet, and it’s almost kickoff time. So, your ass is gonna be bedridden
for a good twelve hours or be as red as a beet if you don’t slide under those
covers right now!”
Out loud the adult says -- “Because daddy loves you and
wants you to be big and strong.
Besides, mommy will be very sad when she gets back from her knitting
class if her little sweetheart isn’t sleeping!”
That last answer is a “why” inquiry that a little one understands
because a sad mommy cries when her sad little one does. The other answers, true as they may be,
are irrelevant. After all, young
children generally respond to feelings, not reasons. The main reason children ask “why” is because adults ask them
“why” even before the word has any meaning to them. “Why” is invariably puzzling to both adults and
children. However, it doesn’t take
long for smart children to discover that adults often pause when “why” is asked
of them. So, when asked to do
something a child doesn’t feel like doing, the child seeks to puzzle the adult caretaker
with that magical, wonderful “why” defense.
So compelling is the “why” inquiry that we carry it as
almost the first question we apply to problems we encounter as romantic,
parental and even as professional adults.
The most exasperating aspect of “why” is that it is seldom that the
correct or most helpful answer applies to the immediate point of frustration,
anxiety, or despair.
I’ll never forget a conversation I experienced with a lady
when I was fourteen years old. She
was telling me of the loss of her husband’s sister to cancer and neither she
nor her husband could imagine “why” God had taken her sister-in-law from them. “Esther
was so good she was practically a saint,” the lady told me. “It couldn’t be
because God was testing us because we’re all dedicated Christians and we understand
that we must surrender to God’s will. Why do you suppose God took her?” she
asked me.
As you can imagine, I had no answer for her agony in my repertoire
of teenage wisdom! Still, “why” is
the first question that haunts the jilted lover, the abandoned spouse, the bereaved
brother and sister-in-law or the person who doesn’t get a certain job.
I’ve come to realize, in the wake of a lifetime of myself making
the “why” inquiry, how often we seek to wonder “why” when we aren’t ready –- or
even more to the point –-aren’t even willing to hear the answer to that
question.
“Why” is a powerful planning tool to be applied to
conditions facing us as we apply strategies to conditions we seek to accomplish,
but the “why” inquiry almost never eases either anger or sadness. Why Britain lost her American colonies,
why slavery was written into the constitution, why Lincoln freed the slaves and
was ultimately assassinated, why civil rights took so long to be realized, why
people become liberal or conservative, why people are gay or lesbian, why
economic theories are so elusive in problem solving: these are all academic or instructional
rather than conscience-easing or heartbreak-mending.
Ultimately, “why” isn’t really an inquiry. It’s often an emotion-laden
demand. As such, it usually provides
little balm to the inevitable outrages that engulf us.
During happy times, “why” is a wonderful inquiry as it
allows the mind and heart to imagine way beyond the likely, almost all the way
to the realm of the impossible.
Questions such as why does she love me? why do I love her? why is life
so wonderful? are not really “why” inquiries. Inquirers who are happy realize from deep within that they’re
not seeking anything. After all,
they’re sipping from the chalice of supreme gratification.
In stressful times, the “why” demand remains as useful as a
knave, as inappropriate as a slave and silent as the grave.
As a demand, “why” sounds and seems compelling. As an answer,
there’s little significance in its telling!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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