Ironic?

Yesterday I was scheduled to speak at the Little Brown Church on Signal Mountain. They have invited me for several years. The church is only open in the summer, a tradition that started many years ago.

For several weeks I thought about what I wanted to say. I first thought of doing something on Samson, but then decided up a story that is very familiar - Daniel in the Lions' Den.

The thesis:

Is the universe deterministic or random? Is everything in some way preordained or does it happen by chance?

It was the movie, "Knowing" that triggered this theme.

Well, I spent Saturday night with a stomach virus, and at 7:30AM Sunday morning, I had to call and cancel. First time I've ever had to do that.

But I did think that it was ironic because in this illustration that I read in preparation...

Someone is running late for work and in one of those “duh” moments can’t find their keys, only to realize they are in their pocket. The whole ordeal only takes about thirty seconds out of their day but, while approaching a stop sign on the way a car appears out of nowhere and runs it. If they hadn’t had that momentary lapse, they very well could have been road kill.

The question is: was losing the keys just a random hiccup of the brain or part of a preordained destiny?

How easy it is to take for granted that stopping to tie a shoe, turning left instead of right, looking down instead of up, etc. could potentially be the difference between life of death.

Hmmm. My belief in it not being a "random hiccup" makes me wonder why I got sick. And, of course, it always make me wonder why I have Transverse Myelitis.