Friday the 13th

It is with some trepidation that I enter the realm of religious beliefs.  But it weighs on my mind.  Please forgive me if my ramblings offend you.

Today is a Friday the 13th.  I am not superstitious.  Seems to me that if one is superstitious one would have to believe there are predetermined performance based plans at work behind the scenes and free will is a myth.  In other words, if I walk under a ladder, break a mirror, etc., then negative forces behind the scenes will punish me.  The opposite would also be true as in throwing spilled salt over the shoulder, knocking on wood, a rabbit’s foot, etc., would automatically trigger the good forces behind the scenes to reward me.  In such scenarios I am a puppet of fate.  And to that I say poppycock.  But it has got me thinking about whether random luck or a comprehensive plan is at work here.

The Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys are having tough years.  Sports commentators in both cities as well as nationally, (sitting around glitzy tables adorned in pin stripes, checkered shirts and stripped ties – who dresses these guys?) announce, “It just wasn’t meant to be.”

The same is true for every team that will not make the playoffs, and for every team except the winner of the Super Bowl.  One winner.  For all the rest, it wasn’t meant to be.  Is Tony Romo’s broken collarbone and Andrew Luck’s lacerated liver part of a plan?

A Georgia high school football player collapsed at football practice on September 22.  He died Monday, October 5^th.  His coach told the media that they had all been praying for his return, but “it wasn’t meant to be.” 

There have now been 7 high school football players who died this fall.  Kids who went out to play a sport and never came back.  For each of those families, watching their sons grow up was “not meant to be.”  Or was it?

Jeb Bush like Forest Gump before him tells us, “Stuff happens,” implying life is random and death is inevitable.  How can random “stuff” be a plan?

So, which is it?  Is it a grand plan that we remain ignorant of until we see a sudden and unpredictable wicked twist in the plan?  If so, then such outcomes are designed and everything is meant to be.  Or is it all just random, some live, some die, some win, some lose.  Life is hard and then you die.  It is all about luck, good luck, and bad luck.  Or, is it a weird combination of the two wherein there is a quasi-plan, but there is a supernatural observer who can intervene in the stuff that happens and may make a plan for which only some benefit?  (Always amazing to me is that those who benefit seem so often to be scoundrels.  Good guys finish last?)  Sure would be nice to know which way it goes.  I use the word “know” here as opposed to “believe.”  I believe most operate on one of the two belief systems.  No one really knows.

And in the wee small hours of the morning when we find ourselves on our knees calling out, “Why him, Lord?  Why her, Lord?  Why me, Lord?” what we are really saying is, “If this is Your plan why are You being so mean and why don’t You change it, or if it is not Your plan why don’t You intervene?  If it is all just random what am I doing on my knees?”

My thinking may be juvenile and superficial on this topic.  Great minds and renowned scholars have pondered the issue of determinism and predestination as well as chaos theory and free-floating radicals.  I have read much from each camp, but still have a hard time deciding where to pitch my tent.  Will I learn where I’ll camp via logic or emotion?  Faith or facts?  If I knew, I would be building a campfire and inviting others over for S’mores.

Here is where I am, not that it really matters to the universe.  If there is a plan it is mean-spirited.  Too many die too young.  Too many are suffering.  Groups of well-meaning folks gather in prayer for the sick and injured.  Some recover and we say, “Miracle!”  Some die, and we say it was not meant to be, that is, the grand plan ordained their death.  Seems mean.

In some cases it feels like negligent homicide.  If God can intervene and is capable of intervening and chooses not to do so, then that sounds like negligent homicide to me.  When the co-pilot stole control of the Germanwings jet and intentionally nose-dived into the French Alps, passengers on board had 9 minutes to pray and surely they did!  Can God save a jet doomed for destruction like Supergirl and Superman?  If He made heaven and earth and all within, snatching a plane from the jaws of destruction should be a piece of cake.  If I can save lives and choose not to we call that negligent homicide and I go to jail.  God did not intervene.  All died.  I should not be too surprised.  We say that His greatest gift of love was to allow His own son to die for each of us.  Wow.  If one looks at that from the other side of the coin, what would we say of parents who allow their child to die so that generations of strangers can go to heaven when those parents could easily stop it?  I cannot fathom that.  If He had to die to save us, why not make a new plan where that was not the caveat?  I don’t get it.  Is considering such in and of itself blasphemy? 

And that, of course, is the rebuttal.  I am just a guy at a keyboard.  God is so far beyond me I am but a grain of sand on the beach.  There is a plan and though I was formed in God’s image, I am not smart enough to get it.  I am not meant to get it.  It is after all God’s plan.  When times are tough I should just “Job” my way through it.  But my plan would look different.

Of course if it is all random then this discussion has no purpose.  We live.  We die.  Some are lucky, some are not.  Stuff happens and we are all superstitious.  But declaring stuff happens seems to me to be an ungodly position.  And, if the “stuff” is part of a plan we should pray for a new plan so that all tragedies are not “meant to be”.  Happy Friday the 13^th.