Fairness

In every hospital there is a child in the process of dying.  The stories are heart wrenching.  It is reasonable to assume that getting to know more details would tear one’s heart apart, strand by strand.  Yet, in the midst of the pain, in grief’s pool, in uncertainty’s reality, there is a resilient hope present in these children!  Kids don’t know of death’s track record of success.  Kids don’t understand the idea of giving up.  Life is about living, hope, and possibilities!  Life must be fair.
 
Life proves a brutal education on how unfair things are.  The clich? variations hint at the story; the good, young, and beautiful all die young.  The pain of experiencing the loss of close friends and family is almost too much to bear.  Evil appears to win because even the good, honest, and compassionate face the realities of cancer, blood diseases, and ravages of the mind. 
 
Even if one can get past this lesson the choice of others will catch you.  The reality of drunk drivers today isn’t new.  The impact of others lost in the moment doesn’t just play out on the streets of New York.  Across the centuries people have taken the innocent and inflicted pain which defies description today.  By his own admission Pilate thought Jesus was innocent and yet, “Pilate took Jesus and had him whipped.” (John 19.1)
 
In the midst of all this I find an extraordinary source of hope.  The majority of kids I meet, often in extreme distress, have a twinkle in their eye, smile on their face, and a voice of hope.  They are reaching for Divinity’s gift of compassion, mercy, and acceptance with the intuitive knowledge it is real!  They may not know how to articulate it but they see a future filled with hope, opportunities, and possibilities.  They want to be part of it, with every fiber of their being. 
 
You and I are dying.  Regardless of the speed, slow or fast, we are on the path.  Today I am holding onto hope – compassionate, merciful, and wonderfully available to all hope.