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Today I heard on Public Radio an interview with the actress from the one woman theater show: The Amish Project. The play is fiction but revolves around the real life forgiveness the Quaker community gave immediately to a shooter of their children at school. The interviewer asks the actress why she thought the Quakers could forgive the person and family of such a horrible crime. She said she was not a Quaker but thought it was because Quakers do not ask ‘why’. If you do not ask why and just accept the event for what it was, a terrible tragedy, there is no need for vengeance, hate, getting justice (punishment) for the person who committed such an act.

It got me thinking about tragedies when asking “Why” was disastrous. After the tragedy of 9/11 the government said that Iraq was behind the attack. This turned out to be false although many Americans still may believe it. Since we had a 10 year boycott on Iraq due to our suspicion they had nuclear weapons (another untruth) which caused great harm and death onto the Iraqi people, they have the why, the motivation.

Instead of answering my appeal to the local SVDP society for structural changes I have received personal attacks on my character. Although I have mentioned over and over again that my concerns, why I am doing this, is for the poor in our city who I believe are not being served because of the large amount of money being diverted to suburbs. See Final Appeal St. Vincent de Paul Society in Milwaukee.

The other night I wrote about why I was angry. Now a lesson I can learn from the Quakers is to speak out against injustice but by not asking why not getting angry.

If we are not looking for revenge, payback or punishment why ask why?

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