The "Big Questions"

Fret not your mind with puzzles that you cannot solve. The solutions may never be shown to you until you have left this life. The loss of dear ones, the inequality of life, the deformed and maimed, and many other puzzling things may not be known to you until you reach the life beyond. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Only step by step, stage by stage, can you proceed in your journey into greater knowledge and understanding.

From: Twenty-Four

Hours a Day

A Hazelden Publication

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     I have mixed feelings about such thoughts. It can seem to be an inducement towards lazy thinking. Couldn’t it be that a scientist harboring this attitude would never discover anything of substance? Wouldn't he resign himself to be satisfied with only what is known? Wouldn't he then cede that whatever isn’t known would be put on a shelf for his moment before the imperial throne of God under the dusty label as“a mystery”? Dogmatists are comforted with the belief that the “Big Questions” can only be answered in the “life to come” but propositions of this sort don’t give me any peace. I do agree, however, that asking why isn’t as important as asking how and what; in other words, I don’t bother myself with why I have alcoholism as much as I consider thoughtfully how I became as I am and what I can do as a remedy. I’m not able to wait for “the life afterwards” for why this happened to me because I have this need to live this life as fully as I can. I can mind my own business about many of the world’s problems but I can also work to relieve suffering as much as that which is within my reach is possible. For these reasons I can ask myself, in a very utilitarian manner, what, or how, can I help make someone else’s life a little better today?

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