I walked today through the streets of the cities and saw all around me…

Today as I sat up on the high lonesome I closed my eyes, cleared my mind , and set forth on my travels once again.

I walked today through the streets of the cities and saw all around me the defeated spirit of humanity. The lonely, the broken spirited, the dejected, the downtrodden, the hopeless and as I walked I asked  “Why God? Why?”

I saw the drunks in the bars and the drug addicts in the alleyways chained to their addictions. Their blank stares and their frenzied expressions mirrored the fear and hopelessness in their souls and again I asked “Why God ? Why?”

I saw the pimps and the prostitutes hustling their temporary “fix”– the illusion of love, and the desperate need in the faces of all who did commerce with them. I saw the homeless staring out at the world as it raced by without them, cold and uncaring. I saw their dreams withered and dying, their hopes crushed by the horde of humanity too entranced with their own pursuits to even notice let alone , to care. I looked up to the heavens and asked “Why God? Why?”

I saw the muggers , the rapists, the abusers, the ravagers, the murderers, deeply entrenched in their dark world, devoid of any compassion, feeding on the helpless. I saw cruelty and a meanness of the human spirit as it preyed upon the weak and dejected. I turned away in disgust and cried out in anger “Why God? Why?”

I saw then the kingdoms of the world at war with one another, the leaders of these mighty kingdoms making impossible, irrational decisions and expending the lives so carelessly of their citizens, like so much cannon fodder, all for king and country!

I saw the battlefields choked with the dead bodies and the screams of agony from the dying. The horrible carnage all around, the waste of lives so precious. And far away from the battlefront, encastled in safety, I saw the dark shadowy figures in conclave devising more ways to rend and tear, rack and torture the human body and forever enslave the human spirit. Choking in terror I turned and cried out “Why God? Why?”

I stumbled away only to find mass graves filled with entire races exterminated for their beliefs. Entire cities razed and leveled to the ground, a dark pall of smoke and the stench of death hovering over it all. Again I saw, far away in safety, the architechs of all these evils and horrors living in decadent luxury from the profits of their evil deeds, dancing, laughing, celebrating at all of the misery and sorrow they had caused. There was no place on the face of the earth that they had not touched and infected with their filth, their evil, their touch of death and despair.

I turned and fled. I ran and ran as far as I could seeking a place of safety, some remaining place yet untouched by all I had seen, some sanctuary from the hells I had witnessed.But there seemed to be none. Exhausted, I stumbled and fell to my knees, gasping for breath, sobbing at the memory of all that I had seen. The awful, horrifying sights I had seen played back across my vision like some insane movie that would not end. My body was trembling with pain. Sorrow brought tears that filled my eyes blurring the awful things I had witnessed. I turned my faced upwards once again to the heavens and shaking my fist I cried out with every ounce of my remaining strength; “Why God Why? Why do you allow this to happen? Why do you let us suffer so? How can you allow men to continue to hate,persecute, to torture, to maim, to abuse and murder others with no sense of guilt or shame? How can you continue to let these evil ones to go unpunished? How can you let the weak and innocent be victimized over and over again? Will you not punish those who commit these sickening acts of depravity? Are we not created in your own image? Are you not a loving father of compassion? of mercy? Why does all of this horror continue , on and on over and over endlessly? WHY GOD WHY?

I sank down once more and bowed my head in fear and I awaited his answer. The world grew silent around me. An awful calm settled upon me. I seemed poised at the edge of a precipace that was dark and bottomless and if I even breathed I would plunge into the darkness forever. My eyes were closed tightly as I waited. There was only silence. An eternity of silence………