A dear friend just passed from this life into the next. She fought the cancer valiantly for 4 years, undergoing extensive and painful treatments.  Through it all she remained positive, optimistic and courageous. A bright light has gone out in our world. There are many who are hurting and grieving her death, even as we celebrate her life. At such a time, age old questions emerge and consume one’s thinking. What is this life all about anyway? Are we here for a purpose or is life just random? Why are people subjected to such devastating illnesses? Is there some kind of life or existence after this one? People have been asking these questions from earliest times- and with all our knowledge and wisdom, we still do not know the answers. We surmise, postulate, preach, opinionate, guess, and speculate- but we don’t with any certainty KNOW. Science, with all its hypotheses and experiments, can prove nothing really concerning these profound metaphysical issues. The easiest course is to banish or ignore the questions altogether. Which to my mind is a thunderous cop-out. Rigorous pondering seems to be a thing of the past. What’s the purpose of life? That’s a good place to start. Is it merely to survive? For the Neanderthals that might have been reason enough.  I hardly think that encompasses…….