All is fair in love and war, they say. I think NOT!! When it comes to fairness, nothing seems fair about it. In her previous blog (The Law of Holes), Tanja wrote about depression, which got me thinking about my shortcomings, again. One thing’s for sure, she knows me better than I know myself. I know life for her is not always easy and while I am writing this piece my thoughts are racing about what our life would have been like if life was fair. Life is hardly ever fair and I’m sure many of you can identify with this.
Here is my version of fair.
According to the Oxford dictionary the word fair means the following: Impartial and just, without favoritism or discrimination.
Now that I’ve read this definition, life is almost NEVER fair. If you were to ask people if life is fair, then it will most likely be the healthy and wealthy that will say it is. It would not be the fifty-year-old man who got retrenched, or the capable sixty-five-year-old being replaced by a younger, inexperienced guy with a degree, or the parents standing by the bed of a dying child with little or no options, or the mother being beaten by a drunk husband, or children burning to death in a tin shack while trying to warm themselves with a gas stove. No, life has never been fair.
When raising children, we try to instill good values, fairness being one of them. But how do you demonstrate or find an example which would accurately depict fairness. Let me throw a spanner in the works, seeing as I was good with spanners: If fair was taught as an important, valuable life skill, then most of our children would be under-achievers. We want them to be fair, but the reality of our unfair world, stands in stark contrast.
When one looks at the “holy” books in religion, fairness is not very evident. On the contrary, it’s the flip side of the coin. There’s partiality, injustice, favoritism and discrimination. I don’t care how you imagine life began, whether it’s through creation, evolution or alien intervention, life from the beginning has never been fair. Survival of the fittest, is what they say. I think that's the most unfair statement ever uttered.
When we were still believers, we taught fairness to our children, and because I was in the ministry (not my fondest memory), I always said that the best sermon was, not the one preached, but the one lived.
Speaking of the ministry: Here’s one huge regret I have and you’ll see how it fits in. According to the bible, Jesus said: “I was hungry but you didn’t feed me, naked and you didn’t clothe me, in prison and you did not visit me.” Well, together with my wife and children, we believed and put words into action. We helped the needy with clothes and gave food to the hungry, but I always had to be the one who went that extra mile. I did the prison thing too. Hearing about a guy who was imprisoned, whose parents were in our church, I decided to go see how I could be of help. The full story is in my book A Man and His God. One thing I must add here: If criminals want a get-out-of-jail card, all they must do is find Jesus. Abracadabra, it’s like magic. Oh yes, they are really, really sorry, but not because of what they did, it’s because they were caught. There are some sincere one’s too, but they are few and far between.
My prison ministry had an immense impact on our family life. I volunteered my services at the Pollsmoor prison every Thursday and due to the impact I had on the inmates, I was allowed to take some of them out of prison under the watchful eye of Correctional Services. I took them to my home, yes, my home, in order to rehabilitate and integrate them back into society. Eighteen guys in total over a period of about two years. Even though I deeply regret having put my family through this, we did manage to rehabilitate and reunite some of these guys with their families.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with fair? If life was fair, my
dear friend, I would not have thought it my responsibility to save other people’s
children, while sacrificing the needs of my own. If life was fair, I would not
have lost so much and been left so little. If life was fair, I would not have
been cursed with a life-altering disease that ultimately took my health and legs. If life was fair, we would not have had to bow down to the elite and
sacrifice our freedoms (and lose our business) for their gain. If life was fair, bad things wouldn't happen to good people and evil people wouldn't prosper. If life was fair,
we would not be separated from our children who sought a better future overseas. If
life was fair, we would be reunited with our children and this unfair period of
our lives would be a distant memory. If life was fair …
Life's a bitch and then you die ... unless I win the lottery. That sounds like a fair deal.
If only.
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