If You Believe in God, You Believe in Karma

One of the Catechism questions for which we had to memorize the answer when we were preparing for our First Communion was "Where is God?" The answer is "God is everywhere."

When you are seven years old, you don't go too heavily into what you are learning. But if I think about it, this is a statement that can not be a half way or part way deal. I can not believe that God is in the good things and not around when something bad happens. God is everywhere or nowhere. And if God is everywhere, there is wisdom and grace and beauty in everything. That is a tough one, and for me it goes hand in hand with the concept of Karma and Re-incarnation. Either everything has a cause or everything is random. I can't see any sense in the idea that everything is random.

If the life and death of Christ, as we tell it, was about anything, it was about re-incarnation. His birth was predicted by the seers who see into the spiritual words. His arrival was seen by the wise men in far off lands (The Three Kings), the shepherds in the fields, the Heavenly Hosts. He came to earth to bring a new impulse to all of humanity and to the earth itself.

When he was crucified, died and was buried, his body was put in the cave and he was born again. He rose from the dead. He sacrificed himself to wash away the sins of the world. His spirit was re-born into the very earth we live in. I learned these things as a seven year old Irish Catholic girl near Boston. Now, sixty years later, I am thinking "What does this mean?" I think it means what it says.

I always thought that my good friend R. was a great optimist. I think I was misreading him. I think he is a rare person who sees the hand of God in everything that happens. He sees the perfect playing out of Karma. We often see bad luck, or failure or disaster in events that happen to our friends and families. R. takes a longer view and sees that whomever needed these experiences to learn something new or to turn into a better person, a kinder person, a more compassionate person. Or perhaps to burn away some old Karma. God is everywhere and if we look at everything with that knowledge held close to our hearts, then sometimes we can see God's hand at work. And if we keep up the practice, we can see more and more often.