So...Why Are We Here Again?

I recently sent out an email message to friends asking what they thought about the whole 'why are we here'question. I got a great quote back from my friend Jason. It's by Kurt Vonnegut:

'To help each other through this thing, whatever it is.'

Boy that says it, doesnt it? That's all I'm actually certain of myself...the helping each other and the 'whatever it is.' I mean, who really knows? There are those of us who feel a certainty about what this is all about but, come on, how can we have any certainty? We can't. We can have faith or hope in something we really want to be true, but there is no way to prove our individual beliefs. So why do so many try to? Why are there wars being fought right now based on differences in belief? I'll never get that. You can try to explain it to me -- many have. But I will never ever comprehend it. Not in this life.

I wish the rest of humanity were content with all the big question marks. Why do there have to be answers? Can't kindness be our religion? Can't gratitude be our hymn? Is there room for self-sacrifice in our dogma? Penance, if you really need that kind of thing, could be a smile: a genuine one. What about a temple of trees and sky....big enough to hold ALL our gods? A shrine of living people, doing good deeds, a sacred text of silence, unwritten, holding only promise and expectation as its commandments. A jihad of blissful, indiscriminate giving. ....

Don't get me wrong, I am a believer: a 'Believer' with a capital 'B' - a believer in a Greater Being who is LOVE, who once walked this earth in human form, a believer in goodness and kindness and souls that live forever and are part of a Oneness we can't always see here. But this is just my point of view, and I certainly can't prove it. I can offer evidence from my own life, but that's it. And I have room for others' points of view. That's what makes this whole experience so fascinating......all of us seeing a different side to the Elephant, no one seeing the whole. I like that.

I wish there were more room for differences. I wish we all reveled in unanswerable questions.