by Austin Vail

Created on: March 05, 2007   Last Updated: May 16, 2007

Destiny, what is it? In the most simple sense, a cause leads to an effect. One's destiny upon hitting the thumb with a hammer is pain and injury. In a more complex sense, destiny is a culmination of many causes and effects, some of which we have control over. Others we do not.

Most world religions have some sort of idea where we do unto others as we would like others to do unto us, karma and the such. As children, most of us figured out that treating people nicely gives better results than treating people poorly, except when dealing with bullies. Sometimes we are pushed into a destiny that we would not have otherwise chosen.

As adults this situation intensifies. We might be laid-off from a job for no other reason than the company needed to save money. That's a huge challenge to keep from thinking hateful thoughts toward the company, and possibly the world in general. The ability to control one's destiny seems a cruel joke made up by those who have had it easy in life.

It's an odd world in which we live. The mysteries of it are far beyond my ken, and so I can't explain exactly how this works, but even when far down and out, having faith in something helps. Having been raised a Catholic, I've chosen to have faith in Mother Mary this time around. I'm not really a Catholic any longer, more of a freethinker type. Maybe this is an appeal to the Goddess spirit of ancient religions. I see that spirit in the Mother Mary icon now, where I did not before.

My faith has gone through many iterations along the way. Upon rejecting Catholicism when about ten years of age because my best friend was Jewish, and I didn't like the idea of him going to hell or whatever spot he'd land up in for not believing just so, my faith went to myself. That lasted through to college, where another faith in a nebulous spirit, somewhat like the Great Spirit of Native American lore, worked for decades. Then I tried giving it up to Jesus with not very good results. Now it's Mother Mary with the explicit request for good-paying work, and this has been effective.

Or it could all be coincidence. I don't very much care one way or another. Having faith in something helps during hard times, and it seems justified to me to keep the faith during good times, treating people as I would like to be treated always. Does this change my destiny? When I look back over more than half a century in this skin, there is a correlation.

Choices made and events that happened as a result have led to where I am now. Yet something else has been going on too, the something that I can't explain in much detail. It's almost magical, but it can't be. It is a part of this world as much as anything else. The platitudes come to mind to love thy neighbor and so on, the basic teachings of my early religious training. But it is more than this. It is not a cookbook recipe to a certain kind of destiny. It could be part of a grand plan as some believe. I'm not so sure about that. It seems too simplified.

I'm also unconvinced that it is all about staying on the good side of God. There's more to it than a grand plan and keeping the favor of a deity. I do think there's a grander vision that I can't grasp, at least from this vantage point. It's a mystery how this all functions together, but with faith and trying, whether there's success or failure, and moving along paths that I can handle, whether smooth or rough, destiny can be controlled.

Regarding those things I can't control, the loss of a job through no fault of my own or the bullying around by those with more power, I hope there is such a thing as righteous retribution for treating people like dirt. If not, there ought to be.

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