What If?

Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?


If I had been a reporter during my working years, those five "W"s would have been the tools of my trade.


Maybe I could have been like the fictional character created by friend, John Riggs, in his Garth Ryland mystery series.  I believe John has now published 17 or 18 of these really good novels...all featuring Garth Ryland, a newspaper reporter in the town of Oakalla, Wisconsin. I could have poked my nose into the dark goings-on of small town Midwestern America...could have solved great mysteries like "Cold Hearts and Gentle People," "The Lost Scout," and "Snow on the Roses." But, such a glamorous and sleuthful life was not mine to experience.

I wasn't a reporter, I was a pastor/preacher.  I didn't so much deal with the five "W"s listed above...I dealt more often with "What If..."


I was allowed to ask people questions like:


What if anything is possible?
What if there is nothing stopping you?
What if every day is the best "today" that it can be?
What if life is as Tigger says: Not about how fast you run or how high you climb but how well you bounce?
What if you could not ultimately fail?
What if the mythical constructs of  heaven and hell were not in play?
What if your hopes became reality?
What if you have everything you really need?
What if you have been created perfect in God's eyes?
What if there really is nothing to fear but fear itself?
What if you could just decide to be happy?
What if, like Jim Mulholland and Philip Gulley suggested in their two books, God Is Love and Grace Is True?


I think I like the What If approach to life.


I am reminded of this story by Carter Heyward:
Once there was a wise old woman who lived in a small village. The children of the village were puzzled by her—her wisdom, her gentleness, her strength.
One day several of the older children decided to fool her.
No one could be as wise as everyone said she was, and they set out to prove it.
One of them said to the others, “I’ll ask her whether the bird I have in my hands is dead or alive. If she says it is dead, I will open my hands and let it fly away. If she says it’s alive, I’ll crush it and she’ll see that it’s dead.”
So they went to the woman and presented her with this puzzle.
“Old woman,” the boy asked, “this bird in my hands—is it dead or alive?” The old woman became very still, studied the boy’s hands, then looked carefully into his eyes.
“It’s in your hands,” she said.