For our faith sharing group this morning the question proposed for reflection was: What in your life is worth struggling and dying for? We were given two quotes, one from Frederick Douglass and one from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to stimulate out thoughts. However, everyone had a problem with what is worth dying for but not with what is worth struggling for.
The quote from King was: “If you haven’t found something worth dying for, you aren’t fit to be living.” I think that it was hard to say what is worth dying for because dying for a person or cause is theoretical, something hard to imagine and hard to predict. Whereas struggle is something we daily face, if we are going through life with our eyes wide open.
Life is a struggle. Some struggle for the truth and some struggle just to stay alive, for food and shelter. In most poverty stricken countries, like Haiti, the poor each day struggle for the basics of life. However, there are low expectations for better way of life so there is a deep gratitude and joy expressed for what little they have. In the USA where the expectations from media and our culture are for wealth, status and the ‘good life’ being poor means sadness and frustration.
When I was a graduate student in sociology at Marquette University, many years ago, I did my major research paper on the “Sociology of Revolution”. I remember being surprised that revolutions in countries most often happened when people were not living in desperation or extreme poverty but still were poor. They had enough to feel they could be better off with revolutionary change. In revolutionary countries there was a major gap between the few with wealth and the many who were struggling to survive.
With the declining middle class in the USA, where now 50% of the persons are poor and near poor for the first time in our history, one wonders if the struggle for human rights and justice for all might lead to a revolutionary change.
When we were protesting teaching of killing at Marquette University on Ash Wednesday a few students came up to us and said they supported our freedom of expression which the military was fighting for in Afghanistan and elsewhere. My response was simple. The military were not fighting for my freedom of speech and I felt I had more freedom and ability to make change in the 60’s than I do now.
Yes life, on a small or large scale, is a struggle. If we can accept that fact, which is hard to do, we can move on in life and found what is worth struggling for. Frederick Douglass says in his quote: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.” Life is a struggle.
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