Chance - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

Saturday as my husband and I drove through our ordinarily quiet and seemingly safe neighborhood we were surprised to see police vans and cruisers completely lining a small street two very short blocks behind our home. When my son and I saw even more police vehicles on the street yesterday I searched the news online to see what was happening, and discovered that a full fledged police investigation (the kind I enjoy watching unfold on Castle) is underway practically in my backyard. A woman is missing (as well as her couch) and "foul play is suspected" because of forensic evidence uncovered in her apartment. It's scary stuff.

It's easy to become a bit rattled when something terrible happens. One friend commiserated in response to a posting I made on facebook, and I quickly assured her that my neighborhood is a nice place to live, but added "bad things can happen in nice places", because they do, and they happen to nice people too.

About thirty years ago I read a book that made me think seriously about my attitude toward chance. God, pointed out the Rabbi Harold Kushner, (in his book "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People") does not operate like some cosmic vending machine. Every good thing we do does not function like a coin put into a vending machine which yields the desired treat. Sometimes evil people see unjustified rewards while kind, long suffering people experience nothing but misery. The crux of the matter is that life is not fair. The positive message in the book is that we can manage to be joyful anyway.

Joy, it seems, doesn't always result from having everything in life go our way. Joy also doesn't ensue because we are "in control" or because we have "all of the answers". Reading Kushner's book helped me to understand that peace was attainable in a world filled with randomness, because God, in giving everyone free will accepted that sometimes He had to stand back and let our existence unfold. I'm not saying that miracles don't happen, because I genuinely believe that they do. I guess my point is just that sometimes it's our turn to be touched by the miraculous, and sometimes it isn't. Tragedy is most often not a punishment, just as good fortune is most often not a reward.

God is not a gamester who plays out our lives like pieces on a chess board. I also don't believe that our lives are some foreordained jigsaw puzzle - destined to turn out in one specific way. Had that been God's intention he would not have given us the ability to choose.

Sometimes people of faith have trouble reconciling the role of chance in our lives, seemingly wanting to believe that our maker had so little faith in us that he handed us the proverbial jigsaw puzzle with each piece a perfect representation of every event in our lives. I grew aware of how prevalent this kind of thinking is (especially among the young) when I filled in teaching a Sunday school class of teenagers several years ago. I was shocked to note that they were so incredibly fatalistic, believing that their lives had been entirely mapped out in advance and that every tragedy that occurs is "God's will".

I argued against that point of view vehemently.

"So if I step off the curb as I walk home from Church today and I'm hit by a drunk diver and killed it's because God wants me to die?" I asked.

"Absolutely!" they all answered. "If you died it would be because God needed you and if it wasn't your time to die He would have intervened."

At that point I begged them all to spare me the platitudes of that sort if Todd or my sons died before me. I told them that I believed that an almighty God doesn't need our help in the hereafter. If anything, he needs our help here, where we walk and talk for all to see, but His existence is not always so immediately evident. I believe that I need my husband and my sons more here on this earth than a Heavenly Father could ever need them "on the other side". I don't think that this way of thinking proves me to be faithless, but that it in fact demonstrates just how much faith I actually possess. I don't need to believe that I have all of the answers and that every bit of agony I feel is tied up in "reason" to feel hopeful. I actually find it quite comforting to know just how much I don't know, and sanity saving to not be constantly searching for rational explanations in a world that sometimes simply doesn't make sense.

I believe that God, in His wisdom, made our ability to choose a Star Trek-ish "prime directive" that He himself tries not to interfere with, which is why sometimes He stands back and allows tragedies to occur. Sometimes the negative choices that others make will impact our lives negatively too. God doesn't take the life of a person killed by a drunk driver - the driver himself bears the responsibility for taking that life through his choices - first to over-indulge, and then to hop behind the wheel in that state.

So perhaps life is a whole lot more like a super-sized box of K'nex (which every parent of sons knows is the best building system ever!) than a boringly precise jigsaw puzzle. God gives us this wonderful gift of agency and says, "Do with it what you will." We get all the pieces, the wheels that turn and the motors and rotors and bars and connectors, and we get a book of pictures suggesting what can be created. However, ultimately we choose what we'll build.

I've thought about all of these things the past few days as the police have canvassed my neighborhood and searched for clues to clarify what happened to this missing woman. I had a passing negative thought that maybe my safe and pleasant neighborhood wasn't the greatest place to be anymore, but then I turned my own thoughts around and saw the positive aspects of the situation. First of all, I find myself feeling fortunate to live in an area where I don't see lines of police cars on an everyday basis. Secondly, I feel secure in the knowledge that while the police couldn't prevent the crime, they are doing everything they can to unravel this mystery and catch those responsible. I can accept that my neighborhood is a good place to be while still acknowledging the possibility that there are bad people around here at times, and that bad things will sometimes happen as a result of that.

Life is still good, even though there is always a chance that something scary might happen. And being me, I had to write a poem that explains the way I see this whole possibility that we need to embrace a certain amount of chance in our lives. After all, in life every single new day is a fresh chance to build something wonderful.

Chance: (By Sharon Flood Kasenberg - March 23, 2013)

Within the steps of every dance
there has to be some room for chance.
The best trained feet can sometimes twist -
the chance for failure must exist.
Is this a reason not to try,
this chance that we will fall, not fly?

Within the purest, best lived life
there's bound to be a bit of strife -
and earnest am I in belief
that most of us don't earn our grief;
most hardships are but happenstance -
misfortunes that occur by chance.

Life sadly isn't very fair -
and yet this fact should not impair,
for when fate is the most unjust
is when we find the need to trust.
Some randomness must be embraced
as part of living life with grace.

Some things will happen without cause,
crimes will occur in spite of laws
and somehow I have always known
I'm shaped by choices not my own
when things that other people do
reverberate in my life too.

So though perhaps I had to fall
I will be glad I danced at all,
for through missed steps and muscles burned
I faltered, but my strength returned -
and with each fall, I must surmise
I had another chance to rise.

Here's to Your Health! - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

When it comes to health, most people seem to hold strong opinions.

 I see a lot of evidence that suggests that many are losing faith in the pharmaceutical industry - perhaps scared off by those commercials we see on television for products that warn us that the side-effects may be worse than the condition the drug is supposed to cure. These people tend to put their faith solely in natural remedies, too often relying on their own cobbled together knowledge of vitamins and dietary supplements. I've also encountered those who are skeptics where all things natural are concerned, dismissing them entirely as unsubstantiated hooey.

I think both extremes are wrong, and I'll tell you why.

My husband has worked for, or with, the pharma industry for many years. I've seen the hoops that those in that industry jump through to bring their products to market. Years of scientific research go into producing prescription medications, followed by years of trials. For the most part, prescription and over the counter drugs are safe, if taken as directed. Those warnings we see on television are warnings of what MIGHT happen - it's not likely, but it's a remote possibility that they have the decency to alert you to.

Now, don't get huffy people - I am NOT pushing drugs here! All I'm saying is that they have their place, and that I, for one, am grateful that science has progressed to the point where many terrible diseases have been virtually wiped out in large portions of the world. I'm grateful that we have medications to stabilize serious conditions, to prolong lives and to ease suffering.

I know there are problems with our medical system in general. Hospitals are understaffed and mistakes occur. Doctors do very little to address prevention of illness and nutrition. I have had  experiences with medical professionals who had no bedside manner whatsoever, but in spite of those times I'm appreciative of the medicines and facilities available to me.

Having said all of that, I also believe that many products sold in health food stores are beneficial. I exercise daily and I try eat healthy meals, but because I know there are times I fall off the diet bandwagon I take vitamins every day. I take a multivitamin, extra vitamin D in the winter when sunshine is scarce, and fish and flax oils for my skin, my hair and my chronically dry eyes. (My eye doctor actually recommended the flax oil, which goes to show that some members of the medical community are beginning to see that natural products and pharmaceuticals each have their place.)

For three years, while my sons were in high school I worked in a health food store. When I started there I had very little knowledge of that industry. When the store was quiet, (which it often was  as the owner refused to advertise, and eventually had to close) I would study what I called "the big purple bible". It was a massive tome that provided a good overview of vitamins and supplements. I didn't just read it, I studied it - writing what each item was indicated for and memorizing as many facts as I could. Then, I listed all of the contraindications and possible side-effects of each one on the opposite side of the card. Any supplement that had any dangers associated with it, or any warnings about how it should be used or what it shouldn't be combined with got a sticky red dot affixed to the right hand corner.

Every day people would come into the store who told me that they had sworn off "big bad pharma" and hoped to cure all of their ills "naturally" because "nothing in the health food store was dangerous". So every day I would pull out my note cards and show them my red dots and explain to them that whether "natural" or pharmaceutical ALL remedies are based on chemistry and therefore potentially hazardous. I would urge those who intended to dose themselves liberally with supplements to seek the advice of a professional - a naturopath or a nutritionist before stocking up on natural remedies - but often my advice went unheeded. After all, they had "read about" health food wares, and thought they knew what they were after. Occasionally I had customers come back and scream blue murder because they had taken things that made them ill. A little knowledge can truly be a dangerous thing!

So I think my attitude toward health care is pretty balanced. I will continue to combine the best of both worlds to optimize my health and my quality of life. I will take vitamins and supplements as recommended by those who understand such things in order to prevent illness. But if I get ill anyway, I will see a doctor and avail myself of pharmaceuticals. I am grateful that both options are available to me.

People complain that Pharma wants our money, but having worked in the health food industry I can attest to the fact that the health food industry wants our money too. Nothing bigger than a thimble sized sample was ever given away in the store I worked at. But what my co-worker, like many in the health food sector did dole out, (and liberally!) was advice without benefit of any formal training on supplements that were sometimes little more than snake oil, without ever alerting the customer to potential dangers as a pharmacist is required to do by law.

So use good judgement everyone, and whether or not you come to the same conclusions that I have, here's to your health!!

Here's to Your Health - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg (July '07)

Natural solutions
for every ill abound -
for all constitutions
quite easily they're found.
Tablets, tea or tonic
to cure whatever ails -
sickness - rare or chronic
whenever it prevails.
Satisfy your senses
with aromatic oils -
build up your defenses
and cure those stubborn boils.
Supplement your diet
with vitamins and greens.
Fiber? You should try it!
(You don't eat enough beans!)
Here's a good suggestion
if lentils don't agree -
enzymes aid digestion,
just take some and you'll see.
Cleanse it or shampoo it
with items on the shelf -
and if that doesn't do it,
detoxify yourself!
Take some echinachea
to build immunity -
or try ashwaganda
if you need energy.
Take some horny goatweed
if your libido's low -
brew some fenugreek seed
if you want hair to grow.
B's are sure to sooth you
when you're over-stressed;
St John's wort might improve you
if you become depressed.
Drink some chamomile tea
to help you get to sleep -
bilberry will help you see
and healthy eyesight keep.
Sweeten foods with honey -
use white sugar no more!
I'll help you spend your money
here at the health food store!