One learns that what nature gives, nature takes away. It is such a general rule of application that wise persons keep it before them in working through issues of life. Offended by this paradox, both good and evil persons, complain about losses. Someone is to blame, not me, but someone – perhaps God or the government, perhaps the rich moguls. Rebellion may become tragic, even when it succeeds for currency in the general population, only to give complicated problems to future generations. Wise persons knowing that drought and fire will follow rain and flood, prepare for alternatives. It is a waste of time and talent to rail against fire and flood, or to delay action until repair seems impossible. The population faces the issue of this conflict in a world taken with atomic power, but unable to manage atomic waste. What is seen as necessary is a growing monster there in the corner. There is an elephant in the house. Pay no attention.
So common is our recognition of cause and effect and the need to incorporate it into our way of life, that much of our reporting follows the implications of it, in large, usually complex patterns. The writings are often somewhat humorous, in analyzing the problems of persons and society. They often seem to go in circles, identifying causes which treat mankind well or poorly, resulting into effects, which treat well or poorly. The breeze may be good for the lady hanging her wash to dry on the north side of the area, but bad for the lady on the south side – in that a chimney at a manufacturing plant located between their homes is spouting soot blowing south. It is a variation of, whose hog is being gored. Truth is in parable.
We are warned that we should plan our lives in concern for losses, failures, unseen possible attacks upon the good life. That is not the way the matter ought to be cast. We ought to plan for the good as well as the ill as a matter of course related to nature. Without that concept we do not do as well as we should with either blessing or cursing in natural life. What a change the more complete perception would make for persons as individuals, and societies as communities, or even nations. If persons plan so as to survive well in drought, or economic depression, or ignorance, or broken lives, will they not plan as fervently for success, education, family solidarity, and the like? There is a funny thing in mankind to believe the good will take care of itself, but the bad needs to be addressed in some way. We tend to address the easy bad, and decline in the difficult bad. We can buy insurance for the easy bad, but do not make good decisions for the difficult bad. We build destructible homes in flood plains, and suffer consequences for ourselves and others. We find it relatively easier to find a way to improve ingestion of information than it is to apply rescue from a debilitating habit. The easy improves one factor in our lives, the other, the debilitating habit, may destroy the best meaning and quality of our lives. For many persons the first is easy to counsel, and the second may become impossible to change. In both cases it takes the person of strengthened will and purpose to self-conquering for solutions. Solutions are aided significantly by faith, prayer, and renewed sense of responsibility to others, even with the encouragement of others. It is enlightened insight, and spirituality.
From a printed interview with a celebrity actress/model, I learned that she had lived an undisciplined life as a young person, had fallen in love at about 27 years of age and lived with her lover for well over ten years. When broken off she finally decided that marriage was acceptable so married another man, in a sincere relationship. He recently died, leaving her somewhat bereft, at 60 years of age. She will sell her home, feeling she can’t live in the area, and is looking for ways to reinvent her life. At sixty years of age? This illustrates a general life experience in which neither the good (pleasant) nor the bad (unpleasant) have been woven to make a seamless life fabric. God means to make of us the growing, well-formed persons, increasing in love/integrity, for work/service, for family/community, for life/death – under God. With discipline, we influence outcomes. Without self-learning, and insight from a source beyond ourselves we do not see that even the losses in our lives have served purpose. I have met persons, and heard many from the media, note how some tragedy had enriched their lives by getting them to return to the fundamentals of the meaning of earth life, and the need to find faith for higher commitment. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020