I'd like to teach the world to sing

in acceptable harmony. It all seems to be working together for something. Sometimes it feels like being the guy in the band with the triangle. You have to follow the whole score, through pages and pages just to make one little "TING!" in the perfect place.

The Mom, Sis and I had Bible Study Tuesday. The interesting discussion of the night was "How far back in history we would have to go to change something that would affect where we are and who we are now?"

This lead us to sub-questions; "If we did change something would it change where we are or would circumstances have changed to keep us heading where we were needed? Would we be better or worse off or the same?"

It was not really the "What If" game, it was contemplating how all the good and bad experiences we went through worked to bring us to where we are now and shaped us to be the women we are today. It also covered timing, like meeting the City Boy.

To meet the City Boy I had to be in a town I usually just fly past, stopped at a place I don't normally go, even to eat, and I had about a 45 minute window to hit. To get me there I had to have the job I have had eight, going on nine years, do something I don't do anymore and be friends enough with the customer so I was moved to do the delivery, that I don't do anymore.....

To do what I did the mate had to be gone. I had to have the means to supply the perceived needs and the willingness to do it. Can't loan out a car if the mate is using it...

To get the job I have when I did meant becoming unhappy with a job I enjoyed and had worked at for eight years with people I liked.

To have either job that long I needed to be settled. I had to have the mate to settle me. I had not lived in one place more than 3 or 4 months in many years before I met him.

If you are getting all that, I have to go back at least twenty years and not meet the mate to miss this date with the City Boy. Maybe further. I had to be available for him, too. That gets the second divorce covered as a needed event...

Even if you limit it to the day it happened I have to have gone to work, had a running vehicle that would take the parts easily and be inclined to make the run to drop them off.

If I had stayed home from work what would have happened? Would my friend in the town have needed something? Would I have decided to go visit the #1son and stopped for a burger where I never eat normally? Would the City Boy have met someone else or no one at all? Would my life be better or worse off without the new friend? Would his be the same, better or worse if he hadn't met me? Only he will know the answer to that.

What about the day I was headed north with every intention of getting drunk at a friend's house but I picked up the guy walking and took him home? Was that to save me from the hang over or was the whole urge to go north just to get the guy a ride?

You could go nuts and never move out of your chair again if you go too deeply into this but it gives things a different twist. It adds the perspective of YEARS into the equation of everything we do. How each event and person shapes us and works to shape our future actions.

If the house had not burned down and we had not experienced the kindness of strangers would I have been so quick to help a stranger? Maybe, I was that kind of person from my early years, but maybe not - the mate liked me to leave strangers alone, it made him worry about me.

Ok, now hang on. Is that also why bad things happen to good people? They need the experience 12 years down the road? Do they need a nudge to change jobs to be in the right place later? To do unto others means being able to understand where they are at in their lives, their heart and their head and do just what is right to get them back on track. Not too much and not too little. To have that kind of understanding takes experience and empathy. You don't get that with a "golden charmed" life.

Yes we had an interesting Tuesday discussion. Have fun thinking about it. Try not to get a headache from the twists and turns it takes. But try it. Think of the last good deed you did. How far back in your life would you have to go to not be there to do it or to not care if you did it?