It's All for the Best

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we recognize that some of the bored gods and goddesses out there make more sense than the active, busy ones.

How many times have you heard this one?

"Everything happens for the best."

Man, it must have been Babe the Blue Ox that dumped that load on the human race. Everything happens for the best? EVERYTHING?

Granted, some things happen for the best. You're having tomatoes for dinner because you planted a little sprig in the spring and it grew up and burst into tomatoes.

But where do all these wildfires, and hurricanes, and earthquakes, and genocides come from? Can't blame the human race for the last two unless you're gonna tell me there wasn't ever a wildfire or a hurricane before Homo moronis came on the scene.

Some pantheons have deities you can blame when it hits the fan, because their whole purpose is to cause trouble in the world. "Chaos" is Herself a goddess, mother of "Gaia," our pesky planet. Faeries, those cute little dollinks, have the capacity to make you go crazy or waste away. Coyote and Anansi are playful, but not to be trusted. These deities make much more sense to me than one that tells you that your painful, terminal cancer is a gift from a deity with some higher purpose behind it.

Sometimes you might have a momentary little weird coincidence that seems spiritual in nature. And it probably is. A happy coincidence! How nice.

Other times you just happen to be standing under a building when a big chunk of it breaks off, say, 50 stories up. If you'd moved a foot to your left, you wouldn't have been wasted by a block of concrete. Unhappy coincidence. How terrible.

Let's face the truth. Somewhere between the Garden of Eden and the Gates of Hell lies our lives -- never all good, never all bad, certainly never the best they can possibly be.

If you life is the best it can possibly be, write to me right away. I'll insult you horribly and put you back in the pack where you belong.