Why Are We Here?

August 12, 2022 | General

I am a city boy, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. A much different place than what it is today. As a teenager I could hop on a bus or city subway to parts unknown. Life was much simpler at a time when civility was commonplace.

Cities are bustling, complex places of diverse structures, ethnicities, and political bent, although when, in my younger days, differences were minor and the clash from one side of the spectrum to the other were small. For the most part, we lived in relative harmony. Mother, father, son, and daughter were the makeup of society predicated on peace, prosperity, and a family unit. Things have changed over the years, but I am not of the mindset that they change for the better although there was a time when the future looked much brighter. Today, from what I have learned and can see before me, the outcome looks bleak.

I now view the world from a different place, surrounded by fields of corn, mountains, and twisted roads bringing me from one point of origin to a final destination of need. I am given to relaxing under the overhang from the second floor of my home while viewing the landscape of trees, and mountains that are now part of my life. A far different view of the stark and energetic hustle and bustle of the Big City, where, as a young man I could stay out till all hours of the morning. Life changes, sometimes for the better, other times for the worse.

I was unsure as to where I was in life until this last evening. As I watched the clouds roll in, and the thunder roar, I decided to check my e-mail from my phone. I received an email from a reader of my articles. Over the years I have received complements, and controversy about that which I have written. This evening I, in my mind, was given a confirmation of why I am here. It may be circumspect, and only a means of self-validating the hours I have spent searching for truth, the point I have missed, or the subject I have misinterpreted.

The e-mail read as follows:

Hope you are well —  wanted to share some words by Abraham Lincoln in “The Civil War”” Volume 1, p.32 by Shelby Foote.  Lincoln was speaking about slavery — the opposing sides — one for and the other against.  But, I was struck by Lincoln’s logic — his logic addresses many modern issues I have read in RestoreTheRepublic.org.  I hope this quote will provide some inspiration for you —  it did for me (“Let us dare to do our duty”)

p.32

     Presently, however, the awkwardness was dropped …… He (Lincoln) spoke with calm authority ….. Slavery was the issue, North and South, he said, probing once more for the heart of the matter.

          “All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right;  all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.  Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the fact upon which depends the whole controversy.  Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition as being right;  but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?  Can we cast our votes with their view and against our own?  In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?”  He thought not.  “If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively ….. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves.  Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

After reading the e-mail I stepped out from under the overhang to take in the sky as if it were a messenger from the Heavens as it struck thunder around me, and the sky grew darker, although not foreboding. As I gazed upward at the rolling clouds, a bright and beautiful rainbow appeared, where I could not miss its resounding claim of peace and tranquility.

While I am often given to wonder, amusement, and thought by my own sometimes fanciful musings, I could not help myself to think that this was indeed a sign. Some believe in an Almighty Deity as the Creator of Heaven and Earth; others believe in pure happenstance. A notion that we are here by a fluke of nature, the coming together of some forces that were there before but have no explanation for their creation over the course of Trillions of Millenia except that they existed. The whole idea seems implausible, but it is none-the-less the explanation of scientists who will go with the notion that there is no proof that God exists.

Be that as it may, I am not one who has been deprived of warnings, spiritual in nature, or to quote Obi Wan Kenobi, “Use the Force.” To me, there is a connection to the Universe that we often ignore. Could it be a “déjà vu” as a glitch in the Matrix? I firmly believe that I have been given enough signs over the years to be a believer in a fact of this Universe. We are given a task before we come here.

That task may be a never ending journey from one life to the next. It may be a call to alert others of the dangers before us. For some it might be the heroism of the battle field. To that I note that the last of those Medal of Honor recipients from WWII died July of this year. I hope that they will be remembered for a task, a lesson, a journey that is beyond the scope of the words I pen from time to time.

Our journey through life may be as simple as a final exam to which we stand before our Creator and recite the lessons we set out to learn. I hope that I am learning my lessons well enough so that I might “dare to do [my] duty as [I] understand it.”

And with that I leave you with the solemn words of Dillon Thomas.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.