Queries

     Questions can be funny things.  There are hypothetical questions and philosophical questions and rhetorical questions.  There’s the question you realize you already know the answer to as its coming out of your mouth and you wish you had realized it sooner so that you could have withheld the question and seemed smarter longer.  And then there’s a personal favorite of mine: the dumb question (who’s existence is denied by some).  In my recent pondering of questions I found myself questioning the question.  I realized that there are some questions that perhaps should not be asked in the first place, and if they are asked, call into question the true nature of our personal integrity, not to mention our priorities. 

   I read in a book recently that the point at which a little white lie becomes an actual lie differs for all of us.  Imagine if we got a group together, discussed the point up to which each of us felt comfortable white-lying and why and for who’s intended or supposed benefit, and then averaged everyone’s white-lying comfort zone, and established the mean point at which a white lie crosses over to an actual lie and becomes officially unacceptable.  My question to the question “When does lying stop being okay” would be “What on earth.  Shall we not just all put a hefty effort into being as honest as possible with one another?” 

   In the dating world, one tends to ask one’s self, “How far is too far?”  Or for others, “How soon is too soon?”  My answer to that is far too archaic for most to swallow: “Wait until marriage.”  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying its easy to find the one you love and hold off expressing that love physically.  Far from easy, it’s the hardest thing I ever had to do.  But it is possible.  That’s asking too much, you say.  Well, just hold on a minute.  How many women want to be swept off their feet by the man of their dreams?  The great majority, if we’re being honest, from childhood through adulthood, at which point the feminine heart is inclined to grow weary of the wait, and despair at her current male selection and settle for whatever guy tells her she’s pretty.  Girls, how many guys would step up and become the men we as a culture need them to be if we put our foots down and said, “Absolutely not, you don’t get the goods until you promise before God and witnesses to love and cherish me and only me for the rest of our lives.”?  Because let me tell you the complete trust and security and love and fulfillment in that scenario far surpasses any fairytale expectations there are to be had.   

   One more interesting question I’ve heard: When does a fetus count as a human?  That’s a slippery slope when you stop and think about it.  I like to say, “At the first available opportunity, better safe than sorry.”  But there are other schools of thought.  Some people feel comfortable with it around 28 weeks. A common idea is to wait until the mother decides she wants to keep her baby before letting society as a whole determine that the life inside her is something to celebrate.  There are those who refrain from bestowing upon people the official title of “human” until he or she pops out of the chute…or to use a more official phrase, until it is “viable outside the womb”.  A human child is such a helpless creature; when are we really viable outside the womb?  If we were to plop a child down in any environment, when would it realistically be capable of self-survival?  At the age of twelve maybe?  For that matter, how many functioning adults would crumble under less-than-ideal circumstances (“thrust into the wilderness” as Frank would say), given our dependence on technology? 

   How viable are any of us really?  Some people are disabled and are never able to care for themselves.  Are they not human by some standards?  Some people grow very old and need intensive care.  Should we off them because nurturing them takes it out of us?  When we begin to try to draw our own personal lines for when we think humans get to be humans based on whatever…where does it end?  Maybe it ends when somebody decides that blue eyes and blonde hair is best, and that some religious cultures are no longer acceptable.  

   We are faced with many questions throughout our lives.  What do you base your answers on?