amidst it all

it is overwhelming. there is pain, everywhere!!!!!!!!
quite possibly, inescapable.
there's really no need to state what it is i refer to.
we can see it all around us.
and well, if you can't,
you can at least feel it within yourself.

and i don't know about you,
but it leads me to a place where i yearn, very deeply, for answers.
ask anyone that knows me,
i NEVER stop asking why?

and when i seek for answers,
i come up with nothing concrete.
but i do feel ashamed.
ashamed that we as people cause each other such pain.
and that on top of that, we do not take responsibility for the harm that has been done.
but i am one of those people,
i feel the pain and the shame,
and i want to run and hide,
and point the finger at anyone who looks guilty enough.

and largely, i have pointed my finger at God.
at first, that looked like me denying His existence.
i did not know it then, but i was simply trying to give Him the cold shoulder.
i was trying to share with Him the message, "hey, if you're going to reject me and leave me here to be miserable, then i am going to reject you and hope you feel the same pain!"
and then, for the past 6 years i have remained angry with Him,
blaming Him for all the pain i see in the world.
continually begging Him to change it and then pleading with Him for reasons why He has not.
and i use to just hear silence and feel abandonment.

until recently,
i heard Him answer me.
answers came in a deep sense of recognition that i am an agent of the pain that i see in the world all around me.
i suffer at the hand of others,
and others suffer by my hand.
or sometimes, simply just the lack there of.
i am in agony over this crushing realization that the answer seems to be:
humanity has caused its own suffering.
and we are all guilty,
if not directly YET,
then by association with those humans who have come before you.
by the simple fact, that as long as humans have existed, we have not been able to ever become the solution to our own problem!

i use to think that if God did not exist then somehow it was easier to endure.
then i could easily blame those around me for my pain, and hope for an ideal future, where people just simply did not hurt me anymore.
but interestingly enough, i think upon it now, and well, without His presence, we are only left with the option of blaming ourselves for all the suffering we so unwillingly bear.
and it was not any easier to endure,
nor was there a future in store with no more agents of pain.

and so now, i will ponder what it means that we are to blame for our own undoing, i will try to learn how to accept that, and what God's presence brings to humanity, amidst it all.