God has a Purpose....Or does Shit just Happen?

It is human nature to wonder at the purpose of life's events.  Especially the bad ones.  Few stop to consider why good things happen -- they simply rejoice and enjoy them.  But when bad things happen, we lament, "why?"

Why must there be a "why"?  Perhaps in a world full of cause and effect, it is only logical to assume the pattern holds true for ourselves.  Or perhaps we simply can't bear the idea of pure randomness, that things happen for no reason.

That ill befalls us for no cause violates our concept of justics, of fairness.  But as your mother might say, "who said life was fair?"  But in a world so full of beauty and symmetry, perhaps fairness just seems right.  Or maybe "reason" is a better word;  in nature, nothing happens without reason.  A lion kills a zebra calf because the lion is hungry and the calf is weak.  The "reason" for this seemingly brutal act is not only to feed the lion but to keep the zebra species strong.  It is nature's balance, her symmetry.

So it is only logical to apply such balance to ourselves.  If something bad happens, it must be for some reason.  But what?  So we make up tales to explain the inexplicable: God is punishing us for some sin;  God has some mysterious and divine purpose; that it's karmic payback for some past wrong committed in this life or one past.

The aspiritual among us will call this hogwash and say there's no reason.  Shit happens, period.  No reason, no purpose -- it is what it is, to no particular end.  And maybe they're right -- who's to know?  But if they are, then our lives would be the sole exception to nature's machinery.  How likely is that?  How could it be that among the vast and complex relationships in our world, that we are the only beings free from it?

Let us examine things from this framework then -- not one of Divine Purpose but of nature.  If the purpose of killing the zebra clf is to ensure the strength of the species, then might not our suffering be similar?  It would be a weak species indeed that curled up into a ball of self-pity and depressed inactoin every time tragedy struck.  That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger, after all.

This is not to say there is an Intent behind things that happen, for that would just replace God or karma with a personnified Mother Nature.  There is no intent behind the lioin and zebra, but merely a system of checks and balances that naturally arose.  As part of the natural world, we would be subject to the same balances.  While we have largely removed ourselves from the basic checks of the environment (though not for much longer), might not we, with our large brains and self awareness, be subject to a psychological version of the same?

Personally, I have gone beyond wondering why.  You may know that Shit Happened in my life recently, and rather than lament on the reason I find I am just numbly accepting it.  Allowing myself a little leeway for withdrawing into a little ball, but also carrying on with life.  Yes, friends are full of comforting assertions that there must be a reason for it, that something better will come of it.  And typically I would agree, but not this time.  Did god send me lemons because he wants me to make lemonade? Hardly.  It's not the lesson I "should" learn (intent) but what I "could" learn (opportunity).