Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Chance or Plan You Decide!

Birthdays come and birthdays go. The years pile up, if you are lucky. Many of us think we are great planners and the successes we have are the result of our planning, manipulations and controlling the situation with a tight fist. But is it all our doings or is it some form of predestination controlled by some powerful spirit making sure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot.

Spiritualists say all of us are put on this earth with a mission to accomplish. Some die very young. Some never have the chance to succeed in terms we mere mortals define as success, wealth, power, always having access to the best this world has to offer including hospitals and medicine only the rich and powerful have access to certainly not the poor. But for most of us our mission may be more like raising a family, helping in some obscure way that we do not even realize we were helping someone overcome an obstacle in his or her life. Sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances that seem so unlikely it only becomes likely when we stop and think about how we came to that part of living.

Many years ago a young man who entered the Army when there was no war, late 1950's, found himself in a basic training camp that was far from his home state where his girl lived, and naturally he wanted to stay near his girl but through an error he was sent about a thousand miles away. But through this error he was able to enter the Army Band and get married and live off base. If he stayed at his home base he would have been sent overseas as his buddies were who entered the Army at the same time and took basic training there. Was it just a co-incidence, or design that his life changed forever because of a clerical error made by some PFC in the US Army processing his papers? Who knows if they would have ever gotten married if he was stationed overseas? She could have met someone else. He could have had a fling or two. The children that came from that union would have never happened even if they eventually got married because the children who sprang from them were unique and could only come from the uniting of sperm and egg at that specific time. Just the same as you and I could only be the result of our parents making love and joining together at a specific time because once those carriers of life were gone they were gone forever never to be duplicated.All of this by design or just co-incidence? The mission resulting from this story is clear, new people, new loves and the human race goes on but with specific people not hit and miss. There were other accomplishments and failures also but I shall stick with this example.

There was a man entering middle age when he found himself without a job. He took a job at less pay, less stature because he didn't want his family to starve. He worked at this company for decade and a half. There were some whom he hung around with but none he kept as close friends. He met a nice young lady with whom he struck up a pleasant friendship but she was a young mother and he was a happily married man. They spent some time together walking along the streets of New York and sharing a few lunches. But she left to become a stay at home mom and he eventually was let go from his job. The last time they spoke was in 1987. He went on with his life, she with hers. Seemingly an innocuous meeting between two people who certainly had two different ships bringing them on their sea of life. Both their lives changed greatly during the course of intervening years. Then some twenty-five years later, in the year 2012, they met again through social networking, quite by accident because he really wasn't into all this internet stuff. They met and were pleased that each one remembered the other. They dated a few times. To make it short and brief. They met, fell in love and are quite happily exploring what mission they have to accomplish while they enjoy each other's company. Was it an accident, a co-incident that he was without a job and landed with a company he really disliked but would have never met her who some twenty-five years after they said their last goodbye met again only this time with meaning?. Or was it by some design that they had to meet at the earlier time or they would never have had the time given to them at this later date?

Life is so filled with these happenings that it does make one wonder if so many co-incidences could be happening that will change the direction one takes in life could be another force than mere chance. Co-incidences alone in life sort of makes life one big crap shoot. I prefer to believe in some great gracious, outside force that wants us all somehow to experience life in it's fullness rather than mere chance.      

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