The Reason Why

When people ask me how I got Parkinson’s, I tell them about the summer of ‘94.

I was 19 and just finished my freshman year of college. Back home in Texas for the summer, I needed a job, so I answered an ad in the paper posted by a golf course looking for manual laborers. I’d be working outside, mowing grass, weedeating, watering greens. I figured it would be better for my health than flipping burgers. I could work in the open air, get a little exercise.

I didn’t think about the chemicals used to keep golf courses green. You don’t get those beautifully striped fairways and carpeted greens by letting nature take its course. Anybody who has a lawn knows that.

We used some pretty potent fertilizers and pesticides on golf courses in the nineties. Four to seven times more than the average amount used in agriculture. Chlorpyrifos (which has been banned for use on crops), paraquat, Roundup, 2, 4-D (one of the ingredients in Agent Orange).

I remember standing beside a big tank someone was filling with a hose. When he finished, he pulled the hose out of the tank and accidentally sprayed the chemicals across my chest. In seconds, a new bleached line decorated the front of my shirt.

To remove the unwanted thatch from the sod in the fairways, we used a process called “verticutting.” It removes the dead grass and allows the turf to breath better. It’s effective, but when you’re done, dead stems and roots litter the fairways, leaving an awful mess. I was running the mower that summer after we verticut the fairways, and the thatch was jamming up my reels. As a solution, the superintendent drove beside me on a tractor rigged with a huge commercial blower on the back to keep the thatch from clogging up the blades. Every day for two weeks he blew soil, grass, and roots saturated with pesticides and chemical fertilizers all over me. I didn’t wear any protection, not even a pair of goggles. We laughed at how nasty I was at the end of every day.

I try not to, but sometimes I obsess over what caused me to get Parkinson’s. When I search for answers, I go back to that summer.

In the evenings I watched the Rangers play in Arlington, and during the day I took baths in poison chemicals.

At least that’s how I choose to remember it when I can’t stop my mind from searching for answers.

Is Parkinson’s caused by pesticides? It’s complicated. Maybe. We really don’t know. The running theory is that the chemicals we spray on our golf courses, crops, and lawns are safe for most people, but they make some of us sick because of a genetic predisposition. Like I said, it’s complicated. We’re still searching for answers.

I’m guessing you know what it’s like to obsess over reasons. “Why did I get sick?” “Why can’t I find a job?” “What’s wrong with me?” “Why is life so hard?” “Why can’t I be happy?” “Why did she have to die?”

Finding an answer may help you sleep at night. Or it might keep you up.

But sooner or later, the answer’s not going to be good enough. Because life’s complicated, and we’ll never get to the bottom of it. One day I realized that pointing my finger at that summer in ‘94 was like throwing darts while wearing a blindfold. I don’t really know why I got sick, and I may never find out.

So let me share with you two answers that may help as you wrestle to find reasons for your experience, whatever it is.

It’s not your fault.

You know why we obsess over explanations? Why our minds ruminate again and again over the past, trying to figure out what went wrong? It’s because deep down we blame ourselves. If we found an explanation, we could let ourselves off the hook.

It’s a routine as old as the book of Job. Job gets sick. His friends visit. They say, “Job, your must have really messed up! You wouldn’t be suffering like this if you were a good person. C’mon! Fess up! Tell us what you did!”

Miserable comforters.

Job wasn’t much better. He demands a hearing before God, wants a chance to show him he doesn’t deserve this. He made the same mistake as his friends. He believed the world operated by an equation that says all suffering is the direct result of wrongdoing.

It’s more complicated than that. Life is just hard. Bad things happen to good people. Life itself is a chronic illness. Jim Morrison was right: “No one here gets out alive.”

Stop blaming yourself. It’s not your fault.

It is your fault.

Like I said, it’s complicated.

The world wasn’t supposed to be this way. Car wrecks, cancer, divorce, unemployment, and poverty weren’t a part of the original plan. What happened? Somewhere along the line, we messed everything up. Sin wrecked the whole system. Then came the thorns and thistles. Suffering. Crime. Poverty. Disease. Death.

And, yes, I said we messed up because we all have sinned. I have sinned. You have too. You may not be the direct cause of your problems, but you have participated in the system that creates the pain.

I guess you could consider the part you played in your own misery and say, “At least there’s some justice in the world. I’m getting what I deserve. I’m such a miserable wretch.”

Maybe that’s where you should start, but I don’t recommend landing there.

You’re failing to consider the whole picture until you consider love. I believe suffering is more than blind justice. It’s a way to understand God’s love.

The greatest love is more than attraction. Love isn’t just some fond feeling. Love values the unworthy, shows mercy to the undeserving, and rescues the contemptible. Christ didn’t die for the innocent. He died for the ungodly.

God knows everything about you. You are part of the reason why. And he loves you anyway.

Believing in love releases you from the oppression of causes. Love sets a new course. Opens new doors. Creates possibilities. You can move forward. Follow God’s example. Start forgiving.

The question “why” is helpful only when we let it lead to love.

Whatever the reason, there is always love.