Sometimes I lay my head down to pray, and I’m overwhelmed with images of the many wrongs and pains in this world. And I can’t help but ask, “If each life is precious, why do so many die or suffer in so many awful ways?” And I often cry like an unconsoled child. And when I become still, and quiet, I see the answer. I look at the things that disturb me so, the awful things happening to so many, and I see the root cause, the beginning of the trouble. And it’s us. Human beings.

The choices we make. Maybe the choices start out as well-meaning, maybe they don’t. Trace them back and you find the bad seeds that grow the dismal crops. Seeds like greed, hatred, cruelty, these are easier to spot among the good healthy seeds, and so they can be discarded. But once an idea or a decision is planted and a system grows from it, then it’s easier to introduce compromise, and after that, corruption. By slowly grafting them into an existing system, the damage can begin and grow.

We were meant to be better. We were created to chase after what’s good. And we were given the option to choose what we will, to decide for ourselves what we will join our hands and our hearts to. Why do we so often choose that which will harm ourselves or others? Why can’t we see the damage all around us and say, “This must stop.” Why does it take horrible circumstances to make us see that the big problems were often quite small, and because we did nothing about them, they grew. When will we take collective responsibility, stand up and say “I will not be part of this, and not only that, I will work against it because it is wrong.”

We were meant to be better than this.