My question being, will we be left to our own devices and eventually succumb to natural forces as dumb luck runs out? Or is there a guiding hand? If we look around, we see incredible circumstantial evidence on both the individual and international scale that points to divine intervention (one of the greats is the vicious storm that destroyed the Spanish Armada and saved England - which later transformed the world). Yet we also see sad, bad, and unjust results on all levels, from the complex circumstances that brought Hitler to power to a little kid coming down with leukemia or dying in a car accident. I don't know. More good will in the world would at least help - along with greater spiritual understanding to arrive at true good will, with a lessening attachment to self (which causes greed, hatred and so on). I suppose we might say that at least behaving as if there is a moral presence in the universe might lead us beyond "luck" - for it seems that we mess with the big stuff to accommodate greed, lust and other ego manifestations, or the consequences. I think I can say, as a partial answer to my own query, that right behavior (as defined by virtually all the legitimate religions) on a grand scale would solve the grand problems, including the survival of our species. The little ones - i.e., the kid with leukemia - will always be with us as a part of being in the mortal world. We perhaps can save the lot of us, then, while still having the open- ended mystery of existence - our gift, in a way, for beauty is a consequence of truth, and truth is beyond all of this world. (At this point we come closer to understanding the reason for the kid with leukemia - as without such things, our search for truth would end - but I leave that for another time, for I have to at least start the idea of the Indian and the squirrel).
The Indian and the squirrel: in grad school I lived on North Campus and liked to make the two mile walk to main campus everyday through the Arboretum. It was there that I began to notice the dozens of squirrels in their scurry through the trees, and the absolute perfection of their incredible climbs and leaps. Perfect, perfect, never missing a beat as I would have time and again. With time, though, I came to see that every now and then one WOULD miss (years later, one missed while I was hiking with my dogs. That was the end of that squirrel). I began then to take notice of everything more carefully and found that everything - from birds to coyotes to deer - made mistakes, and not just with human devices or interference. Nature, I began to understand, was sharp - far sharper than I - but not perfect. While this may not seem much to the reader, this was something of a sea change for me.
A few years later, I found myself living with a backwoods group of Indians in southern Venezuela who impressed me with their skills. No, "impress" is not the word; I was awed by them. They would walk across slippery logs carrying large loads without a tremor, climb trees like monkeys, find game that seemed invisible to me, put together a shelter in the woods in minutes, and always in the right place at the right time. But then the "squirrel" thing happened; on a long trek through greasy-wet mountains, I saw a few of the guys slip and fall - just like me. They thought it hilarious, but it brought back the turning point I had concerning nature: that it is not perfect, that although it usually works very nicely, it does not ALWAYS work nicely. I have had to think since then exactly why this was such a sea change for me, and it has to do with the idea of perfection and the nature of this world itself. But time runs out - to finish later, FK