Does it Matter?

A friend texted me yesterday to let me know that Iran is firing rockets at Israel and to ask if I thought we were headed towards WW III?

I appreciate the heads up because I assiduously avoid the news.

At the time I was quite busy.

Homeschool goes on apace in the shop, while work goes on gradually building the farm up.

It occurs to me wonder, “Does it matter?”

What is the good of a rudimentary familiarity with Latin during World War III? What does it matter that we can diagram sentences if the world is busy blowing itself up?

But I think the question is precisely backwards.

Being able to communicate more directly with the generations that came before us is a good thing. What is the good of World War III? Thinking and communicating clearly is a good thing. What is the good of the world blowing itself up?

I could choose examples from closer to home, from my neighbors, my city, or the patients I have seen just today. What is good of reading Redwall to my kids when there are kids being abused within a few miles of my house? What is the good of growing our food on our farm when there are kids going hungry or living on garbage food next door?

But to ask the question is to miss the point of life. It is to make the evil the benchmark of the good. It is to point an accusing finger at the good, to ask “How do you justify your goodness in the face of this evil?”

The reasonable person points his finger at the evil, (whether the one firing the missiles, or the tyrants grasping their own power, the abusers or the city planners and economic overlords who keep healthy food out of the reach of ordinary children) and asks, “How do you justify your rapacity in a world where there is so much good?”