28. I do not believe everything happens for a reason.

Happy New Year. Welcome 2008.

I know it's part of our popular culture to claim everything happens for a reason. Maybe it is a quiet affirmation of a divine plan. People chant this mantra when a friend gets laid off, when a cousin gets dumped at the altar, when a loved one has a tragic car accident from which he walks away unharmed.

It's a commonly accepted expression, but I've recently started to question it. I feel like it oversimplifies, or worse, devalues real tragedy and crushing loss like the death of a spouse or child through horrific violence, devastating tsunamis, school house shootings.

I admit the idea that everything happens for a reason is a wildly useful concept. It's always practical, and often enlightening, to consider what can be learned from any situation. (See previous post #27.) By considering the unforeseen reason, we have hope that better days lie ahead. When we glance back through our lives, we more clearly see how all the events, good and bad, have led us to where we are.

But to say that EVERYTHING happens for a reason may be insulting to our loved ones who carry unimaginable pain in their hearts.

I have a friend back home who was sexually molested for years by her stepfather. With her mother's full knowledge. I've seen how the abuse has altered the trajectory of her entire life. I've been with her as an adult, collapsed in tears, agonizing over the "reason" she was molested. People she respects frequently parrot the expression. My friend is crushed because she can't figure out WHY it happened to her. "Why did God not protect me? Is there a reason I was treated like an animal? It must be because there's something wrong with me." She has tortured herself trying to find the reason.

I wouldn't dare say to my friend whose brother died as a teenager that everything happens for a reason. How could I be so brazen to assume that my colleague whose child died of congenital heart disease believes there is a reason her daughter is gone?

This IS what I believe.

I believe that God does not control every event on Earth. I do not believe in a God who wrecks havoc in our lives as a way to punish us. I think shit happens. There is good in this world and there is evil. God has given human kind the capacity for both. We have free will to choose good over evil.

I believe God has bestowed on mankind the life sustaining gifts of hope, of faith, of love. And with these, we have the promise that better days lie ahead. We have the capacity to overcome tragedy. When we are devastated by the unfathomable, there is always hope that there can be happiness and fulfillment again in our future.

And, I believe suffering is part of the human experience. People do things with their pain that serves a greater purpose. Many are able to transform tragedy into something meaningful and comforting for themselves and others. Suffering inspires compassion too.

But is all the good that springs forth from tragedy a good enough reason for those who have suffered at at the hands of fate? Perhaps mankind benefits, but for the sufferers I assume that knowledge may never be enough comfort, enough reason.

So I think I will resist saying that "everything happens for a reason." Wish I could think of an adequate replacement. Perhaps the complexity of life cannot always be summed up with small phrases.