Why do bad things happen to good people?
There is an Iranian folk proverb “If you see a blind man, kick him; why should you be kinder than God?”
"More sincere payers are said in hospitals then in temples."
As I read this line over and over again in the hall of the hospital waiting for my father to win the fight against Covid, one thing kept going through my mind “why do bad things happen to good people”?
It reminded me of this book that I had read many a moon ago by Rabbi Harold Kushner who asked the very same question after his teenage son died of a rare disease. He a man of God to have lost his child to an incurable and one in million diseases, devastated him.
He asked himself the meaning of GOD. If god existed, if he was minimally fair, let alone loving and forgiving, how could he do this to me?
Kushner in his book presents God not as an omnipotent dispenser of favors or punishments but as a deity who has created a universe over which he has limited power.
My speech today is not a religious one nor is it philosophical, I just want to share some thoughts with you, that has helped me make sense of the world we live in.
Everything in life happens for a purpose
A few weeks back, me and couple of my friends were driving down to Pokhara and along the journey we started talking about Karma. We all carry our own Karma be it good or bad and there is a great big register where everything is being recorded.
Really? So, what about misfortunes that befall to those whom we consider good. So should their suffering be justified as some settlement of past Karma?
It was 1996, my uncle who had just turned 30 passed away. I was 15 at the time. As the rituals started, I was asked to perform the last rights. His 4-year-old daughter kept looking for her father after she didn’t see him for a few days. What do I tell her?
The elders in the family, the visiting relatives all talked about some big plan of god. A plan that we cannot and should not question.
Sometimes there is no reason.
A man snaps, picks up a gun, runs out on the street and starts shooting randomly. Mr. Hari who leaves his house at exactly 8:30 am suddenly happened to be running late but Mr. Shyam who never leaves his house before 9 am had a meeting today and left early at 8:30. My Shyam got shot and Mr Hari was saved. I can understand the man snapping but what I cannot understand is the logic of who dies and who gets to live.
Why do we have to insist on everything being reasonable? Why cannot the universe have a few rough edges? Shouldn’t these random acts angers and saddens God as much as it angers and saddens us.
There is no exception for nice people.
A friend of mine gets into an accident, his car is completely totaled but he walks away with barely a scratch. Later he tells me, “Thank god, he saved me. God must be looking out for me” I am thinking “really” you? God looking out for you? Is god that blind?
Soldiers in war do not talk about whether they deserve to die or not or the person across their gun is a good person or not. They only talk about the bullet with their name on it or their number coming up.
God can't do everything, but he can do some important things
If God didn't cause our problems and can't fix them, why pray? Two reasons: The prayers of others can make us aware that we are not facing our problems alone. Payer, when it is offered in the right way, redeems people from isolation. If assures them that they need not feel alone and abandoned. And God can give us the strength of character that we need to handle our misfortunes if we are willing to accept it.
Like every one of us at one time or another have faced a scary situation, prayed for help, and found out that you were a lot stronger, and a lot better able to handle it, than you ever would have thought you were. In your desperation, you opened your heart in prayer and what happened you didn't get a miracle to abort a tragedy but you discovered people around and God beside you and strength within you to help you survive the tragedy. I offer that as an example for prayer being answered.
