Why? And ... why not ask Why?

It has been a month since my mother’s death … and I sometimes continue to wrestle with the question of Why?

In a way I think this is the most natural question in the world. Not only in time of loss but at any time really. But perhaps especially in time of bereavement.

I’ve already mentioned that I didn’t like Bob Deits’ book Life after Loss. Well, there are a lot of ways in which this book seems very far from where I’m at. One of those ways is what seems to me to be its extraordinary arrogance in telling those of us who have lost loved ones exactly what to think. In particular, the book forbids asking “Why?” questions and tells us to ask “How?” questions. The reason for his preference for "How?" over "Why?" is that "How?" is easier to answer, more practical; has more utility. And this utilitarian book naturally prefers questions and thought processes that advance utility above all else, it seems.

In any event, I suddenly realized why this dictum (don't ask Why?) really gets under my skin. It's because it feels like such a brutally dehumanizing approach to human grieving, and to those of us humans who grieve.

What could be more human than to ask, “Why?”
Why did my loved one die?
Why is there suffering in this world?
Why are we even here?
Why? Why? Why?

Animals, in contrast, if they could speak, would probably stick to problem-solving questions like “How?” Animals after all are really quite practial. Or at least that's the view of reductionistic utilitarians, I guess.

But we are not animals. We are humans. With human dignity that is outraged when ignored, and violated in the most horrific fashion when we are forbidden to ask those hard, hard questions that challenge all of us sooner or later, especially when stripped of all those natural things that we so naturally cherish, that bring us such happiness as we can manage in this world.

When I was thinking about this I couldn’t help but remember this powerful scene in the movie, Spartacus.

Spartacus, and the other gladiators, have just been supplied with women for their sexual pleasure. The woman who is placed in Spartacus’ cell enters expecting to be used to satisfy his animal appetites. She has never before met Spartacus; he has never before met her; they are not friends, lovers, consorts. No matter to their owners, though: they have no thought that the man and woman won’t simply act according to their animal instincts.

However, Spartacus rebels. He refuses the sexual gift, and shouts at his owners, “I’m not an animal! I’m not an animal!”

Same with anyone who asks those hard, hard questions like Why. Insisting on the right to ask those tough questions like "Why?" is a way of shouting, "I'm not an animal! I'm not an animal!"

In Job, Chapter 3, he asks Why a lot. A good 6 or 8 times I think. No wonder. Job has been stripped of everything – his whole family has been killed, he is bereft of all of his possessions, his very home has been destroyed.

Job is miserable, grieving, and angry. He demands answers: Why? Why? Why? In a way, this is Job’s way of saying, “I’m not an animal! I’m not an animal! Why do you treat me so?”

Job’s “Comforters” … like the author(s) of Life after Loss … very rationally and reasonably point out that asking “Why?” doesn’t really “help” in the sense of restoring “utility” as soon as possible. "Why?" is really not a good “problem-solving question”. It’s hard to answer, maybe impossible to answer, in this life. Such difficult, challenging questions as “Why?” should be left aside for more practical matters.

But Job will have none of this nonsense. He denounces his “Comforters” in no uncertain terms, and insists on asking “Why?” In his anger and his sorrow, he cries, he shouts, he moans, he demands to know "Why" these things are as they are.

So who was right, Job or Job's Comforters? We know the answer because God tells us that answer at the end of Job. Job, and not his so-called Comforters, “has spoken rightly concerning Me.”

Jesus Christ Himself was not above asking that terrible question, “Why?” In words that continue to seer my heart whenever I see them … yet in words that to me confirm above all that He is True Man as well as True God … we see Him on the Cross stripped of everything ... dying and forlorn … and asking, “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken me?”

To me, this is what it means to be a man: to find yourself stripped of whatever is most precious, and to be left with a universe that seems to be nothing but a mocking enigma. And to be a man is to ask of that universe, and of God, and of man … “Why?”

Of course it’s not just a question that Man asks when under severe trial. Who doesn’t ask an existential “Why?” at some time or another?

Maybe it’s possible to avoid the “Why?”s and stick to the nice, tame “How?” Somewhere there’s a wonderful story by C.S. Lewis. It’s really just a little vignette set during World War I. He said that he and another soldier were on a train talking about the war, and in effect they came to the conclusion that the results of the war were not really likely to bring happiness to either them or anyone else. Another soldier overheard them talking, and blurted out in astonishment something like, “Then what’s life bloody well all about?” Lewis said that he and his friend suddenly realized that this was a genuinely new question to this man. A question like this ... and the other big questions about life that most people have been wrestling with most of their lives ... somehow manage to evade some folks.

Maybe so. But surely not most? I don’t myself think I’ve met anyone who, if our conversation went in that direction, didn’t reveal that he or she has asked “Why?” at some time or another.

Anyway, bottom line, as impolite as it may seem, and as non-utilitarian as it may seem, I think I’ll take my stand with anyone, anywhere, who asks “Why?”

Because we are not animals. We are men. Even when stripped of everything, we are men bearing the Image of God and endowed with a dignity and a worth that cries out, in the face of the horrors of this world, "Why?"