It was a Sunday morning in Houston, Texas as a large family was returning home after attending Church.  Houston is America’s 4th largest city, and as such, has wide, multi-lane freeways in and around the metropolitan area. As I recall, the family was travelling in light traffic on Interstate 610, which forms a loop around the core part of the mega-city.

They all perished that day of an unthinkable, “whoever heard of such a thing” event.  As they progressed home, no doubt discussing the rest of their day, an overhead sign and its support spanning several lanes broke loose from their mounts and crashed into the car from above, erasing an entire family from this life.

Why?  Why would any god or the universe allow such a thing to happen?  Is some thing or some one responsible when incomprehensibly bad things happen?  The answer is “Yes”.

You are and I am responsible.  Plus, the guy next door and the gal two lanes over have their hands in it.  Everyone we can see, know or that is on this Earth now or previously, is responsible.   None of us is perfect.  We all make mistakes, regularly, thoughtlessly and repeatedly.  Adding to the imperfections all around us are the misconceptions and faulty calculations of the well-meaning.  This is what got our Texas family, but I’ll explain in a paragraph or so.

Neither your god nor mine sunk up behind the child with luekymia and scrambled its genes to malfunction.  What did?  Perhaps it was a chemical released 40 years ago as yet not linked to the disease.  I do not know, however, I do not blame god or some universe-wide game of mystical roulette.  There is a physical cause, a reason … of that I’m certain.

If you happen to throw a lit cigarette out the window while driving and it starts a grass fire, that becomes a forest fire, that soon consumes 10,000 acres and levels 15 homes, is it the wind that caused the out of control fire?  No, the devastating fire was a consequence of a bad habit.

Everything that we do has consequences; sometimes good, sometimes bad.  True, it may be someone else that pays for our actions or they may lay dormant for a very long time, but there are consequences none the less.

So, what caused the untimely death of our Houston family.  A specification for the mounting bolts was calculated incorrectly or manufactured on a substandard basis.  Perhaps an engineer missed it, or a steel company failed with a batch or an assembler got it wrong.  Certainly, a mistake was made and there is plenty of imperfection to go around..

This reality can educate us about many big questions.  We can know that God doesn’t spin big hurricanes at poverty-stricken islands for fun, that we have to be ready for the unimaginable and that more often than not, our mistakes are going to cost us, or someone, someday.  Additionally, we must take responsibility for our own actions, face our mistakes, correct them and move forward.

After all, if you are not to blame at this moment, you will be for something soon, right?  Forge ahead, do your best and forgo the pity parties.  Take responsibility for your actions and learn from the failures and enjoy the success you achieve.   Use all of your energy to make a better you and none on taking guilt trips or finger pointing!

Credits:  Thanks to Wikipedia for the picture of Interstate 610 in Houston!