Why Are We Here?

Here we are in the world--a patchwork of darkness and light. A shadowland of amazing beauty and love, of cruelty and ugliness. And so why are we here?

The Qur'an says we are here because we were given the Mandate to come, and we accepted the responsibility as Covenant, and our work was (is) to be here ... really be here in this amazing underworld and to bridge heaven and earth, not in principle, but in fact, in our very being.

One poet says that we are to be here and not deny the stark and cruel mystery of the world (Oliver). Another poet says we are to add our lone song to a chorus of music which sings and is being sung by the Creator, for in the end, we have fallen into the place where all is music (Rumi).

Another poet says that we are "bees of the invisible" gathering the nectar of the world and storing it up as golden honey for the great living hive of future humanity. So why are we here? ... our task is to stamp this provisional, perishing earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its being may rise again, "invisibly," in us (Rilke).