Back when I was in seminary and, like my fellow students, full of indignation at a world teeming with injustice and inequity – way back when the consequences of fighting every battle that crossed my path seemed unimportant in the face of so many urgent causes – a very wise professor said these words to me: “You must choose the hill you die on.”
I’m still angry about it. There are times where I get to thinking about him, what he accomplished, what he had yet to accomplish, and I just want to tear my clothes, punch a wall. Question whatever higher power there is about why take him, what was the point. It feels senseless and cruel.
I tell myself there’s a reason behind it. Some sort of grand plan. But there are those moments where “There is a reason” shifts into “There better be a reason, and a damn good one.”
Overall, I just don’t understand. And maybe I never will…..
In the musical, Les Miserables, Fantine sings “I Dreamed a Dream.” The song is the story of how her life went astray, how her path became so muddled that she lost her way.