My Sinisterhand

Whatever is, is.
Nothing can both be and not be.
Everything must either be or not be.

I don’t profess to have all the answers and for the most part I am glad I don’t. Yet, what is it that angers and annoys me so much about my worldview being trashed and tread upon like dirt? I believe it is disrespecting and insulting to both the belief and even more for the person who holds it. I find friends and people in general are more approachable to an open dialogue about philosophies, worldviews, and topics on life when I respect them and their beliefs as if they were my own. Out of love for them as my fellow man, it doesn’t make sense to try and pick apart or destroy what they hold dear and use to live their lives daily. Whether the subject is culture, ethics, religion, or societal issues, each one of us holds some sort of worldview of them. Only through open and honest dialogue in a public domain can we work through these ideas, testing each one rationally and logically for coherence and correspondence to the world around us.

From the canyons of the mind,
We wander on and stumble blindly
Through the often-tangled maze
Of starless nights and sunless days,
While asking for some kind of clue
Or road to lead us to the truth,
But who will answer?

Side by side two people stand,
Together vowing, hand-in-hand
That love’s imbedded in their hearts,
But soon an empty feeling starts
To overwhelm their hollow lives,
And when they seek the hows and whys,
Who will answer?

On a strange and distant hill,
A young man’s lying very still.
His arms will never hold his child,
Because a bullet running wild
Has struck him down. And now we cry,
“Dear God, Oh, why, oh, why?”
But who will answer?

High upon a lonely ledge,
a figure teeters near the edge,
And jeering crowds collect below
To egg him on with, “Go, man, go!”
But who will ask what led him
To his private day of doom,
And who will answer?

If the soul is darkened
By a fear it cannot name,
If the mind is baffled
When the rules don’t fit the game,
Who will answer? Who will answer? Who will answer?

-Ed Ames