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THE MESSAGE. BRINGING INTO FOCUS FILIPINO PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA
www.kalatas.com.au | Volume 5 Number 7 | APRIL 2015
OPINION
HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE
Fate or coincidence
E
very person has his
own unique set of
circumstances
in
life. From the outset,
there are things that
are pre-ordained.
I refer to one’s starting position in life when a person is
born, and the many things that
happen and will happen in the
future beyond his or her control.
For example, you may
have been born Caucasian,
rich, handsome, athletic with
a whole set of great genes that
give you an edge over most everyone you know.
Or you could have been
born a woman in a domineering, harsh, male chauvinistic
culture, and you are small, frail,
handicapped, plain, and living
in some God-forsaken place
where to have a life that you
want is nearly impossible.
In both situations, you
hardly had a choice. You were
simply born into your situation.
It is painful to see and read
about persecuted people, or
those who are very sick, handicapped, helpless and extremely poor. I remember the lyrics
of a song I learned as a boy that
goes, ‘There but fortune go you
or I, you or I’, and I ask why others have circumstances that
are so difficult and so different
from mine.
Was it simply luck, or what
they call ‘the roll of the dice’?
Could it be Fate? Karma? Des-
ADOBO
tiny? Are there really such
things? I will never know.
I may not understand God’s
will and why He allows many
people to suffer lives of want
and others to live in abundance. No one can be certain
how and why each person’s life
is somewhat pre-ordained with
his own unique set of circumstances.
More than knowing the answers to how and why, I prefer
to think that each person has
a mission to fulfill. And the circumstances we find ourselves
in play a part in that mission.
Think of the parents, family, community, nationality, social class we were born into.
Is it possible that God chose
the parents who would give
us the set of genes we need to
physically meet the challenges of our mission? And think
of the place, time and our social standing in society. Could
they be crucial or strategic to
the mission? Could the