I was flipping through some of my Mom's old National Geographic magazines the other day. The February 2007 issue had an interview with Francis Collins on how he manages to reconcile his strong religious faith and his work as director of the Human Genome Project. He's also a doctor and has worked with a lot of dying patients. I really connected with one of the things he had to say:

In my own experience as a physician, I have not seen a miraculous healing, and I don't expect to see one. Also, prayer for me is not a way to manipulate God into doing what we want him to do. Prayer for me is much more a sense of trying to get into fellowship with God. I'm trying to figure out what I should be doing rather than telling Almighty God what he should be doing. Look at the Lord's Prayer. It says, "Thy will be done." It wasn't, "Our Father who art in Heaven, please get me a parking space."
I kind of feel that "Thy will be done" is a useful concept even for non-Christians. One of the most common objections I hear against the existence of the Abrahamic God is: "How could a just and merciful Creator allow so much suffering in the world?" Which is a pretty legitimate question, IMO.

But then, my first reaction to the law of karma was "How can you say that somebody deserves to suffer now because of something they did in a past life? It's not fair!" And I've never really found any explanation of karma to be completely satisfying. It made me think about Jundo's early webcast about "accepting without accepting." Not in a fatalistic sense, but finally taking a reasonable attitude on what I can change and what I can't. Trying to get past It's not fair!.

So whether our lives are dictated by the whims of a personal and omnipotent God, or by a blind, impersonal system of karma, or by nothing at all...does it eventually boil down to Thy will be done?

It's a bit late here and I'm tired, but I hope this post made a bit of sense to someone. Sorry for rambling on!