Why?

I know, and have heard, that bad things happen to good people.  Nevertheless, the logic of it is something I cannot keep a grip on for long.  Adding to the confusion is that old, ever popular and vigorously unchristian belief that blessings rain down to reward  kind, generous, loving, upright individuals.  It's that idea that we can earn, that we really deserve the sunshine and blessings, when there's really scant empirical proof of this.  


But when this popular mentality is preached from the housetops, it does indeed seem to motivate a lot of good behavior. The trouble comes when the wicked, selfish, unscrupulous scoundrels skate by unscathed and healthy, or even prosper into old age from their greedy and devious machinations, passing on what they have gained as inheritance to their children.  And the trouble comes when the sweetly innocent child is diagnosed with cancer, when families scramble to pay medical bills and mortgages,  when the unsuspecting blue or white collar worker jobs and pensions go up in the smoke of mergers or outsourcing.   Who is to blame? Not God. The sun does shine on the just and the unjust, but sometimes that fact is both infuriating and crazymaking.  


So the question arises: What changes would be more fair? Do I prefer a less merciful God?  Sometimes. Maybe.  But not, of course, in my own life because I need all the mercy I can get!  Admittedly, I indict myself. But I wonder still about the playing field and why it's often so uneven.  I also wonder why the wit and wisdom of some is so disproportionate to their  success and failure.  Clearly, some people seem jinxed and, clearly, there's an awful lot of dumb luck  going around!  


And  that thought saves me from wishing all the worst all the time to all the  bad people. And from having to decide who they are. And maybe even lets me benefit from some of that dumb luck now and then.  So it is comforting to recall the lesson Job learned,  and  a greater consolation to know that he articulated it to his "comforters."  The bottom line is that Job understood only that he understood nothing.  Hugely humiliating, this was also ultimately liberating because he gained  a true perspective.  Life in this world is often more simple and more complicated than we realize.  


There are, in fact, shades of gray  to tolerate and maybe even value, nuances which escape me.  Word that a child is diagnosed with liver cancer immediately alarms and draws compassion from me and from hundreds, even thousands  of friends and strangers.  Why not the same impact if the diagnosis  befalls an old coot on medicare? No matter how beloved, the effect is very different.  So my job is to focus the lens, not to control the shutter speed.  I've been convinced for  a long time  that context and content matter, and just because the madman shouts in the marketplace doesn't mean he's right and sane.  Often it just means he's got a soapbox. And a voice that certainly doesn't require my attention.  Why do I keep forgetting that?