How many times is there a fire, four people burn to death, one child is saved and someone invariably says, "God must have had his hand on her."
What I always want to know is what the heck did the other people do to make God mad enough to incinerate them? Aren't his hands big enough to grab the other people too? (I refer here to the old spiritual, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, which we used to sing with so much gusto at Sunday School and then at coffeehouses and during peace marches. More to the point, I could also refer to the Wood Brother's song, Lovin' Arms, with the lyric that asks, "But what if he's got slippery hands?")
Admittedly, my agnostic perspective has a lot to do with this kind of thinking. And I'm an Earth Sign if you're into astrology. A down-to-earth Taurus, although, after a long Maine winter of carb stuffing, I resemble a fatted calf, more than I do a bull. But I digress. Back to the metaphysical musings.
I know I'm out of the mainstream in thinking that Divine Intervention isn't a Good Thing, but I've never figured out why so many people believe it is. It seems very presumptuous to me to think that my life is worth more than someone else's. (Of course, it goes without saying that this doesn't include right-wing radio talk show hosts, the man who invented those ads that shimmer into view like a phantom when you're in the middle of a good blog thereby obscuring the details of some big star's rehab ordeal, or anyone I don't like.) There are limits.
It seems obvious to me, but not to many other people apparently, judging by the number of individuals who remove the batteries from their smoke alarms because they go off when they cook, that Divine Intervention is just dumb luck most of the time. Well, luck and smoke alarms with batteries or cars with brake jobs or cells that did what they were supposed to do, or an immune system that is strong enough to fight off invading bacteria and viruses.
My viewpoint doesn't leave me without moments when I shake my puny fist at the Universe and demand to know the meaning of a personal tragedy. I'm only human, after all. When something bad happens to someone good or life gets cut off way too soon, I find myself looking for meaning, for the purpose, in this cruel world. After all, what is more horrible than feeling that life is just a series of random events, with no meaning other than the meaning we give it?
Well, that's the point, isn't it? If life IS a series of random events, with no one, or No One, I guess I should say, orchestrating it, then it's not personal, even though it sure feels like it sometimes. There's Nothing that's going to save us if we're good, but better yet, there's Nothing that's going to punish us if we're bad. Of course, this is just my personal belief system, but it's no wackier than any of the other nine million One True Religions out there.
When I find myself asking, "Why me?" when something bad happens to me, I try to remind myself that a lot of bad things didn't happen to me, but happened to other people instead. I don't live in Darfur or Iraq. I wasn't born conjoined to someone by a major organ. Childhood diabetes skipped me entirely and I have two more surviving children than many families in Third World countries have. My house is not on fire, but if it were, my smoke detectors would go off, because the geek is obsessed with replacing batteries. (Of course, that means he's always recharging them, so if we ever DO have a fire, it'll be a battery charger overheating. Trust me.)
My late mother, a devout Christian, often asked me how agnostics and atheists can go through life without believing in anything. In spite of my explanations, she never understood that the only thing that we don't believe in or that we question, in the case of agnostics, is a Divine Being. (I didn't have the heart to tell her that - out of all the gods that people believe in worldwide - I just believed in one less god than she did, although it was true.) Of course, from a Christian perspective, that's a biggie, seeing as how God is the central tenet of most religions. But it's not everything.
What about the physical laws of the Universe? I believe that the sun will show up in the morning, go down in the evening and we'll have some kind of weather in between those two events. Bees buzz, birds chirp, dogs love us and cats ... Well, as Death says in Terry Pratchett books, "CATS ARE NICE."
Like true believers of all stripes, there are some things I don't just believe. I know them. I know that family and friends love me and I know I love them. I know that life is full of beautiful music, moments of humor, food that smells and tastes wonderful, spicy berry-flavored wine, warm garden soil and home-grown tomatoes. Sometimes, in the midst of grief and great loss, it's hard to believe that we'll ever look forward to the first bite of the first tomato of the season, but we will.
I guess if I have to find Reason in the Universe, it'd have a lot to do with things like homegrown tomatoes, books, music, friends and family, and all of the good things that have happened and are going on in the world. I have no quarrel with folks who prefer to rely on Divine Intervention. But, me, I'm going to keep checking those batteries in the smoke detector and unplugging the charger at night.