Our
grandchildren were here at Christmas and I had forgotten just how curious they
were. “Why does Bella (the monkey) use
her feet to eat her banana?” “Why does
the dust blow?” “Why doesn’t it snow in
Nicaragua?’ “Why does nuclear fusion
need water to cool it down (yes, THAT question came from the almost 7-year-old!)?” Why?
Why? Why?
Children have
an innate need to question. If they are
allowed, they will ask the tough questions…the “whys” over and over and over while
they try to grasp an understanding of this confusing world. But more times than not - as tired adults -the
impatience wins out and we squash that unique aspect that makes us human…that
part that wants to make sense of our confusing world.
I am more
and more convinced that one of the greatest maladies of the world today is that
we do not question and when we do, we do not ask the right questions.
In college I
had two professors, Margaret and Ace, who challenged me to question. They took
our Bible class on a poverty tour of Atlanta.
We started with an opulent neighborhood and moved to the slums of
Atlanta where we stayed in a church made up of poor people. Seeing the contrast within a mile of each
other was like someone throwing a bucket of water in my face.
Margaret and
Ace challenged us. Why was there poverty? Why were those people in Atlanta poor and we
were not? Even more importantly, what were
we
going to do about it?
I, like my grandchildren, have many questions and here are just a few:
- With enough technology, food, transportation, etc., in the world to end poverty then why do we not end it?
- Why do we withhold resources from poverty stricken areas of the world, which would raise the standard of living there, which would result in more cooperation among nations, limit extremism, and lessen diseases?
- Why in a country of plenty like the U.S. there is a growing gap between the poor and the rich? And globally…
- Why do we allow 80 people in the world to own as much as the bottom half of the world’s population….3.5 billion people?
- Why
do some babies grow up in families with multiple cars, houses, food from around
the world, and so many toys that there is one room dedicated to the toys,while some babies starve to death?
- And why are these not basic questions for students, people of faith, voters, poor people, wealthy people, bankers, laborers, mothers, fathers…the whole human race?
And then
there is the most important question of all:
What am I going to do about it?
-Kathleen
