SUNDAY SCRIBBLE: LIFE IS NOT FAIR or DO YOU BELIEVE IN COINCIDENCES?

SUNDAY SCRIBBLE:  

LIFE IS NOT FAIR or DO YOU BELIEVE IN COINCIDENCES?  

Life is not fair.  We've been told that since we were kids.  Mom and Dad sitting at the dinner table telling us how we need to not accept that things will always break our way; scolding us on our demands of equality as we pound on the floor and ask one more time why we can’t go to the mall, or have that extra playset that we wanted. 

Or how your father would look at you squarely and tell you how there is no money tree and that everything we eat, drink, use or have was bought with his your mothers hard earned money.  How even the food on your plate wasn’t handed out as a giveaway, but earned from working long hours at difficult jobs. 

So Life Is Not Fair.  We know that.  We experience that in our daily life.  When a police officer doesn’t see the speedster who just whizzed passed going fifteen over the speed limit but just happens to be there the moment you go through a yellow a little late.  Like the whole cosmos is out to jerk you around, and let some more deserving jerk get free.

How about when the boss sees only your screw ups, complains about your mistakes while letting the other guy goof around at his job.  Forgetting the long years of service you have provided while the other individual gets away at doing nothing beyond sucking up to your boss.  After all, your hard work doesn't get rewarded, but gets ignored – no the occasional good job doesn't make up for it.  Again, the cosmos is jerking you around.

It’s okay though.  Our father never did find that money tree.  I haven’t either, nor have we found that goose with golden eggs, or the king that can turn things into gold – which must be a great party conversation starter, and if you get too close can end the conversation just as quickly. 

After all this, how do we deal with the reality that Life Is Not Fair?  We can’t accept such a patently unfair concept that Life Is Not Fair, or can we?  I answer these questions by referring to a movie I have watched several times, one of THOSE that make you really examine your place in the world and wonder at God’s presence.

In the movie SIGNS, Merrill Hess (Joaquin Phoenix) asks Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) for insight into the lights over Mexico City.  The former Reverend looks at his brother and says something to the effect is that the world basically divides into two types of people.  One type looks at the alien lights over Mexico City as a sign (thus one of the references to the movies title)  from God and that everything will be okay.  The other type looks at the lights over Mexico City and feels tremendous fear and uncertainty.  To some it up Graham puts it another way and says “Are there such things as coincidences?”  After a brief allegoric story from Merrill about a girl puking before he kissed her, he proclaims that he believes in God and that they are signs and there are no such thing as coincidences. 

I added this section about the conversation between Graham and Merrill because when we ask why Life isn’t Fair we can ask ourselves the same question:  Which group do we divide ourselves into?  Now this isn’t an attempt at religious conversion, but it is an attempt to ask YOU – If what is unfair hasn’t done you in, it has made you stronger.  Then could it not be part of a bigger plan for you.  Or maybe it’s just a coincidence.  You decide, but before you do make sure you think about the outcome.  It could make all the difference in the world.