CONFUSION

Originally written the day after the 'Challenger' space shuttle explosion, January 1986
Revised 21 October 1987

• When you feel the world has beaten the snot
  out of you and you don't know all the reasons.
  
• When you mourn over a tragic incident
  without knowing why it happened
  
• When the President tries to console you by saying
  that the seven involved in that incident were
  able to "touch the face of God" and people still
  feel bad.
  
• When you don't know all the reasons
  
• When you can't find the answers to your questions

• Do we mourn because we thought we were
  so great that no one, not even God, could stop us?
  
• Is God a God that punishes us for going beyond
  the golden mean?
  
• I s the reason for our sorrow the fact that we miss those people?
  
• Or is it because we don't know how to explain to
  their children why their mommys and daddys
  cannot come home and where they've gone?
  
• Is that our confusion?

• If Heaven is supposed to be such a great
  place, then why do people cry and mourn and
  wear black clothes when others die?
  
• Is this an instance of our trying to overcome
  Fate, by not wishing these people to leave us so soon?

• Do I really know what I'm talking about?
  
• Why can't I express all of my feelings on
  paper so that they'll give the same impression
  that the idea gave to my mind? The way it is
  with these ideas, these fleeting images which I
  consider important, is that my brain picks them
  out so quickly that the ideas are incomprehensible
  once I place the words on the paper.
  
• Is that confusion?