inequity

We teachers learned it in Ed. Psych. 301, although we'd all heard it from our mothers long before taking our collegiate seats. You've heard it, too.

Life isn't fair.

Not fair, not equal, not just. Not by any stretch.

Have you ever known anything that was? I'm about to attend a funeral visitation, a memorial for a beautiful 20-year-old. I don't understand it. I don't like it. It isn't fair. And so, there arises in me a need to hold it up against everything else, to question this death against all of life.

For example, that whole "All men are created equal" thing -- yeah, I'm pretty sure our founding fathers were smart enough to know the fallacy in that kind of thinking. And I'm pretty sure that what they had in mind was our right to be represented by a protective government and our right to choose both goals for ourselves and the level of effort we are willing to exert to attain them.

Everything else? Not fair. After all, is it fair that the man who shows responsibility is given more work to do while the woman who exhibits only irresponsibility is rewarded with additional leisure? Is it fair that one student can run a 4-minute mile while his classmate sits, not in the stands, but in a wheelchair to cheer him on? Is it fair that my grandfather lived to be 92, but our school family has lost in the past six months both this lovely young lady (whose service will be packed with loved ones) and also a ninth grader, full of potential and a future?

Even when we attempt to create equality, a disparity in fairness arises. Distribute gifts equally and listen to complaints about choice. Distribute knowledge equally and listen to complaints about practicality. Distribute the time equally and listen to complaints about quality. Distribute money and listen to complaints about additional need (?).

Of COURSE it's not fair.

LORD, teach me to count my blessings, to realize how unfair your grace is -- how it provides me with far more than I deserve. And teach me to be both kind and patient with those who suffer with what they feel to be inadequate. Help me direct them -- gently -- to your Providence.

And, when the rain falls on the just and the unjust, help me to remember what a blessing those drops are, rather than seeing the downpour as an inconvenience.