As Luck Would Have It….

I have always said the only luck I have is no luck at all. Half-jokingly, that is. Because I really never believed in luck. Or fate. Or anything hokey in that sense. For all the Irish in me, though, I’ve never been blessed with any of what might be considered good luck. Irish or otherwise.

Or have I?

After revisiting (binge-watching, that is) all thirteen installments of Carl Sagan’s original Cosmos series, and as we approach St. Patrick’s Day – that “luckiest” of days – I may have changed my mind about the entire concept of luck. Science has a distinctive way of putting things into perspective that way. Even things like luck.

It’s an astonishing gift of mind-blowing proportion that we exist in this universe. Further, that we are even clever enough to realize we exist is astounding. The notion of the remarkable gift this universe exists in the first place cannot be overstated. Is it God? Is it science? Is it both? I don’t have those answers. The answer I do have, though, is luck – if ever such a thing could be conceived. Maybe you don’t believe in God. But God is evident in this luck, as far as I am concerned. Maybe you don’t believe in science. But the randomness, chaos and strict scientific laws which govern us simultaneously, coalescing to create all that is, all that was, and all that ever will be is both science and God. One and the same.

And what is the result? We are. This is my luck. All of our luck. Not accidental luck – but good fortune. Providence. Divine intervention.

This is good luck.

There is no possible way all of this comes together for no reason.

Last week was a less than stellar week in my world. In the usual human way, I managed to offend, screw up, and generally not live up to the high standards of behavior I believe are demanded of us in return to the universe for the inconceivable endowment of life extended us. No, nothing is asked of us in this way in actuality, I know. We may choose to live however we wish, in whatever small-minded, short-sighted manner we want.

But consider the universe. Consider the magnitude. The overwhelming enormity of what has transpired, combined, and occurred for us to be here. For every single last atom to exist.

We are lucky. We should act like it.