Knock, knock ...

My mother had a little throw-away line she would add to any statement that had to do with the future - holidays, babies on the way, money expected - that kind of thing. She'd say, "If it's meant to be." My dear mother died aged only 40, so perhaps she felt something the rest of us did not.

As a small child, like any small child, I copied her statement until one day I caught myself and began to actually think about it's meaning.

If *who* or *what* means it to be? (Whatever the current "it" was).

God? But my mother did not believe in God.

She certainly did not believe in the devil either.

Just plain old forces of nature, then? But it still sounded as though she knew there was a force, a *something* that had more to do with our destiny than we were allowed to know.

Just *who* is there?

Over the years, I have begun to see how much I and others, (that's you, by the way), give away to unseen powers. There are, for a start, a multitude of possible Gods in whom to believe. Some give credence to "God's will." Others think there is a jealous, angry God who needs appeasing, and who can punish (sometimes at random). Still others think there's a benign, all-loving God who simply does not interfere with the affairs of the world, (otherwise there'd be no wars or cancer), but who simply created everything.

And then there's the no-God school, (of which my mother was a staunch member). Here, you can believe in anything from "everything is random," to Darwinism to superstition.

Aha! Superstition. Black cats and ladders can now hold sway over the unwary. Or, if you're of the "everything is random" school, then anything could happen to you at any time, and life is at best uncertain.

Out of curiosity, check it out for yourself. What do you believe has influence over your life that has nothing to do with you the physical person? How much power do you give away to these things?

How much of what goes wrong in your life do you blame on "circumstances," "fate" or something equally intangible?

And when things do work out, do you send some thanks to somewhere invisible, maybe even to something that the rest of the time you swear you don't believe in?

Where do you draw the line between what's you and what's "not-you" but still has impact on your life?

There are no rights or wrongs here. Just a foray into the only truth that matters - yours.

Knock, knock. Just who *is* there? nnn