For No Rhyme Or Reason

So, I'm not what you would call a fatalist and never have been. I have been an existentialist at one time... meaning that I was desperately searching for meaning in a seemingly meaningless world. I read Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sarte, and even a couple of Richard Wright's lesser known works when I was in my teens and was convinced there was no meaning in the world and that there was, in effect, no order in the world. I say that because in the past few weeks, things have been happening to me... bad things... and for seemingly no reason. I haven't done anything to anybody (This year!) and I do believe in karma!

Two weeks ago, I'm sitting in my parked car and I see an old man in a car built before I took my first shave, moving towards me. I beeped my horn, yelled, and screamed. But, this old man doesn't put on the brakes so my newly washed, waxed car is the breaks and he leaves a sizeable dent in the rear passenger door of my car! To make matters worse, he refuses to give me his insurance information (I suspect that he doesn't have any). My insurance company wants me to get his information. He wants to pay me for the dent out of pocket but he doesn't agree with the price the collision garage gave us. I admit, I don't agree either, but I want the dent out of my door and I'm losing my patience with the old man and the collision garage.

A few days later, while I'm still pondering how I'm going to handle that, a 23 year old man driving a pick-up truck (with a revoked driver's license and registration that expired a year ago), has a seizure and crashes into an electrical poll with such force that his truck flies backward, hitting my next door neighbor's car and then, mine! He broke my headlight, bent ny hood, and dented my front fender. Incredible!

Meaningless events. No rhyme or reason. This time, my wife takes the photos (see one above), the police and insurance companies are called, my car is towed to a collision garage, and I'm told that they are going to repair everything and paint my car as well. I was even given a loaner to tide me over until my car is totally repaired. Ahhh, the joy of good insurance! (Don't tell the tea party people, they might get mad!)

While my insurance company and the insurance company of the young man will pay for most of the damage from the latest incident, that stubborn old man is going to be given a quote for the damage (dent) that he did. He's going to pay whatever that quote is out of his pocket and if he doesn't, there may be another meaningless act committed! (Did I write that?)

Is the world full of meaningless, random acts that just occur for no rhyme or reason? Well, one would have to be an athiest or agnostic to kind of go for that and I'm neither. I can say that I'm lucky that I wasn't in the car at the time of the impact because I most certainly would have been injured. I could say, it's just a car, lives are more important, and just be thankful that no one was hurt... not a child, not the reckless young man driving the truck, and most of all, not me!

I can say that God was watching over me and that maybe my plans got side tracked to protect me from something far worse that might have awaited me that Friday morning. I just don't know and I'm not in a position to care. I'm just shell-shocked right now... waiting for the other shoe to drop and staying prayerful.