Does God look on with dismay?

Does He just watch? Or participate in my life? I think He has participated, because I'm 63 and haven't killed myself after attempting suicide multiple times. Or all those close calls driving -- not seeing the other guy and barely braking in time, or "planing" and skidding on top of  water pool, going 65 on Route 1, without hitting the guardrail or flipping over. Or take my worst personal failure, getting rightfully fired and  transferred to a different unit, which became a huge opportunity launching my 30 year award-filled career with the State of NJ. Or the blackouts from my youth, from Lord Calvert or drugs. I woke up slowly, but awoke.

So I believe in a personal God yet I don't call on Him enough. All the religious writings tell us to ask for His boundless grace and gifts, and forgiveness and help. Grace to do the honest things you want to do; recognizing and accepting His gifts - what I call "opportunities." Help with what we think we want at the moment, like sunshine at an outside tent wedding, or a job, or if lucky, a big raise. Or a cure for cancer for a close relative or friend, let alone food for the starving. Do I ask Him because others want me to? Of course. Sometimes I say aloud the short Healing Prayer or Prayer for the Dead for others. Even the Remover of Difficulties. I say the Noonday Prayer for myself.

Yet as a kid growing up in a deeply Catholic family, being baptized at birth, learning catechism, taking Eucharist, passing confirmation, serving as alter boy and in the choir; heck, I was Godfather to my Scout Leader's Catholic conversion. Did I believe in Him? Not really -- I took Him for granted. Belief actually came at age 18 reading Lao Tze about The Eternal One. And the I Ching expanded my mind and feelings. Without knowing, I was searching for Him. 

I found him a year later and was comfortable -- comfortable having no prescribed path, taking days and life changes as they came. Never pushing -- not my nature. Floating down the river of life aimless, not knowing or caring I actually had a safety vest on and a burgeoning Guide.

Hence, when I married my only love, Janet, our vow was to God, not to ourselves. I'm still learning about Janet, marriage, life and death, and God. Loving the abstract Unknown Essence was harder than the white haired, white bearded man in the clouds. Oblivious until I recognized my trivial trials as opportunities to gain character.

I have never blamed or cursed Him for my, or our condition. Or my families', friends', others, government, the world, changes for good or bad. How could I? Didn't He create all existence and its laws? Is it God's fault one of my uncles is slowly dying of lung cancer from smoking? Or the same when a doctor will confirm mine after 50+ years?

We want to blame someone else for our "bad luck" and poor behaviors. We sue the tobacco companies, despite warnings we've seen on billboards and TV and read on every pack for years. Or the other driver's insurance company. Too much of what some of us have done to ourselves, or to others, wants to be blamed on others, or God's action or inaction. Yet, man's laws are laws also, and we always need their sometimes stupid interpretations of what is right - for all concerned.

On the other hand, how can God be blamed for 1,500 deaths when  the Titanic rammed an iceberg? Or 77 Air Force cadets sent to the hospital in Mississippi in 2011 from a lightning strike?  Or the unspeakable deaths of 20 children from bullets in Newtown Connecticut?  Early man attributed such things to the actions of gods, then gradually to the actions of one God.  Only the Unknowable Essence knows for sure, if that's what you believe, like I do. Is it all cause and effect? Luck of the genes?  Or the laws of Nature.

 Many despair over their suffering. And we have stories of those who rose above on World News with Diane Sawyer at the end of the show. Was it bad luck Mom didn't win at slots? Or good that she did/does? Others exult in the good, some are silent. I bought one PowerBall ticket for myself, hoping for luck. I didn't win. I wasn't sure I filled it out correctly. Do I blame God?

I feel I have an obligation in my years left to correct man's inhumanity to men, women and children. I feel God is helping us, not just watching; but he very well may be doing only that. He's set everything on to their destinies. But I need to act to help Him -- and ourselves. This world right now, not my grandchildren. Like halting climate change, achieving an end to terrorism, or eliminating gun sales.

Take the Russian troops and undercover thugs and instigators whom annexed Crimea, and are now doing the same in eastern Ukraine. Is its government shaky? Yes. But it was created by the will of its citizens, with blood spilt to a dictator, perhaps two. How soon we forget the tactics of dictators. Actually, we don't forget, because they're all the same; we're not united enough as a global society to prevent their cruelties with decisive intervention in all cases. Immediate trainers, protective troops, and material support on the ground and elsewhere is what we give first, maybe, followed by critical humanitarian aid after the fact -- thank God for the U.N. High Commander for Refugees, and NGO's and relief agencies. after the damages and deaths are done and it's safe for us to enter another country. How hard is this to figure out?

I am not the definition of a hawk. Mediation is best; it's why I've been a municipal court mediator over 20 years. Diplomacy is preferred, like treaties and trade agreements which are only the beginning. But not delay causing unjust chaos and deaths of innocents. There's another law: the Rule of Love thruout the universe. Keeping the planets in place for a long time. Causing all action and constant change.

Mankind is still trying to accept that . . .

That's my diatribe today. I apologize. I'll try to keep most to myself. Do you have gripes or wishes for the world?

Rodney Richards Copyright 2014

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Surviving Bipolar Disorder in the modern age . . . a journey of Hope for the afflicted.
My poetic memoir Episodes available at www.amazon.com/episodes-rodney-richards/dp/0615914705/