Well, Why Not?

Father Malcolm Willoughby, a former pastor of our parish at St. Dominic in Detroit and whom I've spoken of in the past, once offered during a conversation an idea I'd have never considered. "When bad things happen to someone, there's a tendency to ask, 'Why me?' Well, why not you?" he said. "Why shouldn't you be as subject to the awful things which can and do happen to others?"

He's right, of course. And, you'll notice, the question rarely gets asked when good things come along, as though the good might be seen as an entitlement and the bad an outrageous affront. Oh, and Fr. Willoughby made this point too as we talked, you don't say that to someone who is currently suffering from a death in the family, or a personal crisis of some sort. But the question, why me?, really doesn't have any value. It may be perfectly reasonable to feel that way when you're down. Yet just as you're not exempt from the good, you aren't protected from the bad either.