When I Was Four

When I was four, Lord, I asked, “If I weren’t me, who would I be? “You must’ve smiled at my childish philosophizing. Unanswered, I gave up the question, but never forgot it.

Now, Lord, these six decades later, I know if I were not me, I would not be. Age brings some answers; raises others.

My new question, Lord, is not who would I be but “Why am I me?”

When he sat next to me on the bus, even my weak olfactory sense detected his unwashed scent. The bus driver was rude to him; I heard the jangle of empty pop cans; knew him to be homeless, a derelict; society’s castoff. Why am I not he? Why am I me?

A cognate question, Lord, if I may: “I am now, why not then?” Why not Berlin in 1941; Rwanda in 1995; why not Cambodia in its killing fields time; China under Mao; Spain in the inquisitorial time; Salem in her witch-hunting days; Louisiana in 1850-a black slave; Georgia under Jim Crow; Johannesburg under apartheid; Mexico City when Cortez raided; a plains dweller in 1870 facing marauding US cavalry? Why am I now and not then?

And if I may venture, a third question, O Lord: My life has been one of ease. I have not hungered or thirsted, been cold or hot, never unbathed for more than a day, never naked or even ragged of clothes, never exhausted or ill beyond remedy. My losses have been those of expectation not of substance. My child did not drown at five; my wife still lives and shares my life. Though older and creaky of joint, they still work; the heart pumps, the brain, though less of memory, can still think. All the plumbing works. And I ask “Why me?” So many others hunger, thirst, shiver and sweat. Family members die too Young of bullet and famine and I live on.

Why am I me, Lord? Why am I now? Why am I here? Why has my life been so smooth and unruffled? It’s not that I’m complaining, Lord, but the contrast is so great. It’s all so unequal. They, those on the news and those who suffer without note face tragedy, pain and want; and I? I live at ease.

Then there is the matter of You. You have captured my heart and displayed Your power in me. Why me, Lord? I see nothing within, when I turn in that way, to commend me to You. An accident of birth, of place and time and person turned my heart toward You and You were standing there waiting for my turning. Why me? Why not him or her or them? Why me here and now and not they then and there?

I know that I am of You; that I live through You and that I am for You and to You. Though in my still-childish philosophizing I cannot answer the why and when and where question any more than I could the be question, I know I will know. You smile,, perhaps You laugh, at these ramblings of an old child. But Your smile, Your laughter is that of a proud father glad His son is thinking and wondering. Perhaps it is You who raised the questions in me, to ask You again, to surmise and question and want to know, in the lack of answer, You who are Answer.

So I cease my questions, lay them aside and desire only to know that one grand Answer which is You and though I can see only the back side of the tapestry now, know that someday You will turn me to the front side and I will fall on my face in awe and wonder at the image You have woven with my life. Grand or sad, small or large, rich or poor, strong or weak, Your fingers never drop a stich an never make an error in all the grand design till all comes ‘round to right and light swallows up darkness and we, all of us, see how You have woven us into Your story and are glad

122-1-12