This morning as I was taking Emily to work, the radio news was talking about the tragedy of the week, three teenaged girls who were killed in a car crash. “Everything happens for a reason” was the response of one man. I call complete and utter bullshit on this, even though I know that this phrase is something we stupid human folk say to each other when we don’t really know what else to say.
I had a visceral reaction to this phrase this morning. I don’t doubt that there may be some silver lining to this; hopefully one of them was an organ donor and somebody is getting a new heart or liver or kidney. But shit happens. Don’t say “everything happens for a reason”, because it doesn’t. That statement is not based in reality, it is based in a church pew somewhere, and even that is flawed. If one believes that God has a plan for everyone and everything, then God has made some pretty shitty decisions for some folks.