Whys and wherefores
Last Sunday there was an NFL game with a final play and call that upended what everyone watching assumed would be the outcome of the game. It caused enough upset and controversy that both sides of a labor dispute with the professional NFL referees sat back down and got serious, and announced a new agreement yesterday, so that the supposedly inadequate substitute refs could all go back where they came from.
I don't care about football at all. My father was shocked that I graduated from his alma mater without ever going to a football game. I enjoyed basketball, I went to some of those, but I am not really a big sports fan. I am aware of major things that happen, that people are talking about, and I can appreciate other people's feelings, and I appreciate skill and dedication on a personal level; so I don't despise sports or sports fans, I just have other interests.
In the midst of the stories of all the reactions about this particular game, whether that call was justified or not, whether the game was stolen! or not, a young friend said that he was talking to his dad about it. His father's comment was that with different refs, it would have been an entirely different game, and who knows how it would have come out?
That struck me as very true and totally unrecognized in all the uproar. With different referees many calls would have gone differently--probably--and game strategies and coach actions would have shifted, and the teams would have undoubtedly been in a different position, one way or another, in those last moments. Human nature being what it is, there could easily have been some other point of upset and controversy, yelling at the very referees who are now so ardently desired.
We only see this one moment. We forget to see that changing the one moment we see includes changing things we don't see.
The point is, there are always imperfect results in this world. There are always multiple variables at play in everything we do, between other people's agency, their innocent mistakes, our own choices (which sometimes we don't understand well as we're making them), things that just happen because those are the conditions of this life. Every choice or event causes its own effects and intersections.
What if?...is one of the least useful and most universal games we play in our heads. What if I hadn't taken that road? What if we hadn't been running late...if we hadn't been at that spot that moment we wouldn't have had this accident. I know that one well. We were coming home from the temple, didn't we deserve protection? (I came to the conclusion that if a heavenly someone tried to get that driver's attention, they couldn't break through--he came out of his full-size pickup truck, having hit us, cursing that he had had an accident in that same spot and here it was happening again. Since I was stopped at the end of a line of cars waiting for a light, I couldn't have done anything to avoid. He had an empty lane to either side of me if he could have responded to the realization that those cars were stopped, and swerved. On the other hand, if he swerved but didn't have enough time and hit the back corner of my station wagon, he might have spun us around and maybe it would have been worse. I don't know.) My eventual answer to the start of any what if in my head is that maybe something else could have happened, somewhere else, even worse; maybe I have been saved from all kinds of things that I don't know. [Actually, I think that's a pretty sure bet.] It's part of what we knew would be the hazards of this life.
Second-guessing and wailing don't actually make anything better--"what if?" is actually a form of bargaining that is one of the stages of grief, we just want this thing not to have happened. It takes a little time to process shock.
But it did happen. Whatever they are, things will happen to all of us that we want, fervently, to have not happened. That we want to get a do-over and be somewhere else, or do something else, now that we know. Give me another chance! Please!
Accidents, natural disasters, medical crises, family tragedy, personal abuse or abandonment--our hearts cry, "Why?" (and, "why me?") They hit hard and deep, loaded with pain.
There isn't always an answer to the question 'why?' Often when we ask that question, we are spinning around looking for someone to blame, and there might be no blame, just happening. If there is nice, valid blame, it doesn't make time go backwards. What if the blame is our own, how do we deal with that? Run away?--how long can we hide? Some people try to hide forever, and it destroys their lives.
If not blame, then we are desperate for comprehension, so we can sort things out; that has some hope of an answer, eventually. But in my experience, there is one question which will always have an answer if we can hear it, if we can quiet all the uproar or reach desperately enough through the tumult to really want to know.
That question is, "What should I do?" What can I do now, what's next, how do I cope; it comes down to turning to God and saying, "help." Help me see, help me trust, help me heal, help me continue. Help me act, in the way that will help me or someone else. What do you want me to do. Reaching for and following those answers is really the only thing that might bring us to the other answers as we recover. Those answers teach us how to strengthen, and mend, our lives.
The Lord promises that he will make weak things strong, including us. He is the Healer of all things. Isn't it wonderful to know that he loves each of us so totally that he will never give up?
The Book of Revelation ends with a declaration and invitation. (chapter 22: 16b-17)
I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
I don't care about football at all. My father was shocked that I graduated from his alma mater without ever going to a football game. I enjoyed basketball, I went to some of those, but I am not really a big sports fan. I am aware of major things that happen, that people are talking about, and I can appreciate other people's feelings, and I appreciate skill and dedication on a personal level; so I don't despise sports or sports fans, I just have other interests.
In the midst of the stories of all the reactions about this particular game, whether that call was justified or not, whether the game was stolen! or not, a young friend said that he was talking to his dad about it. His father's comment was that with different refs, it would have been an entirely different game, and who knows how it would have come out?
That struck me as very true and totally unrecognized in all the uproar. With different referees many calls would have gone differently--probably--and game strategies and coach actions would have shifted, and the teams would have undoubtedly been in a different position, one way or another, in those last moments. Human nature being what it is, there could easily have been some other point of upset and controversy, yelling at the very referees who are now so ardently desired.
We only see this one moment. We forget to see that changing the one moment we see includes changing things we don't see.
The point is, there are always imperfect results in this world. There are always multiple variables at play in everything we do, between other people's agency, their innocent mistakes, our own choices (which sometimes we don't understand well as we're making them), things that just happen because those are the conditions of this life. Every choice or event causes its own effects and intersections.
What if?...is one of the least useful and most universal games we play in our heads. What if I hadn't taken that road? What if we hadn't been running late...if we hadn't been at that spot that moment we wouldn't have had this accident. I know that one well. We were coming home from the temple, didn't we deserve protection? (I came to the conclusion that if a heavenly someone tried to get that driver's attention, they couldn't break through--he came out of his full-size pickup truck, having hit us, cursing that he had had an accident in that same spot and here it was happening again. Since I was stopped at the end of a line of cars waiting for a light, I couldn't have done anything to avoid. He had an empty lane to either side of me if he could have responded to the realization that those cars were stopped, and swerved. On the other hand, if he swerved but didn't have enough time and hit the back corner of my station wagon, he might have spun us around and maybe it would have been worse. I don't know.) My eventual answer to the start of any what if in my head is that maybe something else could have happened, somewhere else, even worse; maybe I have been saved from all kinds of things that I don't know. [Actually, I think that's a pretty sure bet.] It's part of what we knew would be the hazards of this life.
Second-guessing and wailing don't actually make anything better--"what if?" is actually a form of bargaining that is one of the stages of grief, we just want this thing not to have happened. It takes a little time to process shock.
But it did happen. Whatever they are, things will happen to all of us that we want, fervently, to have not happened. That we want to get a do-over and be somewhere else, or do something else, now that we know. Give me another chance! Please!
Accidents, natural disasters, medical crises, family tragedy, personal abuse or abandonment--our hearts cry, "Why?" (and, "why me?") They hit hard and deep, loaded with pain.
There isn't always an answer to the question 'why?' Often when we ask that question, we are spinning around looking for someone to blame, and there might be no blame, just happening. If there is nice, valid blame, it doesn't make time go backwards. What if the blame is our own, how do we deal with that? Run away?--how long can we hide? Some people try to hide forever, and it destroys their lives.
If not blame, then we are desperate for comprehension, so we can sort things out; that has some hope of an answer, eventually. But in my experience, there is one question which will always have an answer if we can hear it, if we can quiet all the uproar or reach desperately enough through the tumult to really want to know.
That question is, "What should I do?" What can I do now, what's next, how do I cope; it comes down to turning to God and saying, "help." Help me see, help me trust, help me heal, help me continue. Help me act, in the way that will help me or someone else. What do you want me to do. Reaching for and following those answers is really the only thing that might bring us to the other answers as we recover. Those answers teach us how to strengthen, and mend, our lives.
The Lord promises that he will make weak things strong, including us. He is the Healer of all things. Isn't it wonderful to know that he loves each of us so totally that he will never give up?
The Book of Revelation ends with a declaration and invitation. (chapter 22: 16b-17)
I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
And the Spirit and the bride [symbol of the Church] say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
Come. Find what will sustain and nourish you. Buy milk and honey without money and without price. (2 Nephi 26:25. Also see Isaiah 55:1 ) Come to him, and he has promised to open his arms to you in his love.
I completely agree with you that 'what ifs' are completely useless. Except. It's not really a 'what if' -- if one can look back to see if there is a lesson to be learned. When I've made a mistake, I don't want to make the same one again.
ReplyDeleteThat's true. I think that's what I meant about comprehension, to understand and add it to your experience rather than getting stuck on blame, self-pity, and misery. To teach us how to do better and be better, so that our experiences are part of our learning and don't become what keeps us from going forward.
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