Day 2: Not by chance

It's a phenomenal game, snakes and ladders. Sometimes your're up, sometimes you're down. Most times you're never quite sure whether you're up or you're down, or merely floating in that strange limbo between here and there. It all seems so random, such a shot in the dark, the luck of the draw or the chance of the dice that its hard to imagine life as anything but far from being certain, constant, planned, destined or fated. So many things occuring at the same time- kinda like the original big bang- that Aha! that magical, unplanned, random moment when everything falls in place. Amazing, yet, possible.

I have had alot of problems with the idea that God has its plan. Not cos He's got a plan, really. But that I'm not always privvy to it. Like I'm a chess piece at the mercy of the greater player and ever so often it seems He has made some very strange moves, thrown many seemingly arbitary curve balls my way that it makes life appear to be one huge lottery game. I don't like not knowing, to be honest, it scares me, it annoys me and it terrifies me. It's like driving a car in unknown territory without a map. No, it's like trekking in the deepest rainforest without a map and food or water. No, correction. It's like sailing the protean sea without a map, without an obvioius guide, buffetted by the tempest and without any real useful floatation device. No, no, correction again. Its like crossing the angry desert with no map, amenities with only the sun to guide you. You are at the mercy of the changing winds which, with a single breath, is able to transform the landscape from there to come hither; where there are mirages of hope and false futrition in the etheral oasis-wasteland that misguide and mislead.

But here we are, isn't it. Exactly where we don't really imagine ourselves being. Life's funny like that, God does have a sense of humour (I mean, He did create the platypus didn't He?). And sometimes we just have to have faith, that nothing's ever random, nothing's ever unplanned or unaccounted for. And maybe that's the beauty of life, that we see only as far as we need to see, or as far as we should see. And take heart, that someone out there- someone greater- knows the grand plan, knows what lies beyond the bend, knows of the potholes and the high crests and that's enough for us.