Time and Chance and Beauty

prologue:
“I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned, but time and chance happen to them all.” (Ecc 9:11)

———————

Time and chance happen to us all. In other words, we don’t live in a blueprint, pre-determined universe. In reality, if things were already settled, determined, controlled, only “one way,” then there’d be no opening for love. Love is the invitation to risk, and risk doesn’t happen without indeterminacy.

We’re free. So–
-Take the leap or stay put.
-Be found or remain lost.
-Say yes or say no

Everything is permissible, though, yes it seems wise to remember that not everything is beneficial.

It only kinda makes sense (“only kinda”) when you think in terms of God creating not out of a need to get to a certain kind of morality, but rather a certain kind of beauty. That is to say, God is not waving his finger and telling us to “be good.” God is the catalyst and in the midst of everything that we might call true, gracious, and beautiful.

Time and chance are woven into the nature of reality. Evolution, life (both good and bad), all interconnected. It’s less that God determines the specific bad to happen and more that God specifically determines that good can be chosen in the midst of the bad. This is really good news.

———————-

epilogue:
The wake of a single drop of water in the pond, the pulsating of blood through vessels, the smoke curling and wafting over the fire, your life and all its options… partner with God and make choices but that "one right choice?" It may not exist. Though love does.