Time & Chance
by Brian Knowles
“Just the other day, 228 people boarded an Air France flight from Brazil to Paris. They never arrived at their destination. As far as anyone knows, they are two miles down on the ocean floor in the crushed wreckage of an Airbus A330. The reason for the devastating crash is unknown. It could have been weather, an electrical failure or even terrorism. We may never know.
In Paris, friends and relatives of the deceased waited without much hope for word on what had happened to their loved ones. Interviews indicate that the passengers were ordinary people going about their business in normal ways. Most were French or Brazilian. The list included a 60-year old American geologist and his wife, a possible member of the Brazilian royal family (out of power since 1889), the head of ThyssenKrupp steel in Brazil, and the head of Michelin in Latin America. All share a watery grave at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Somewhere in the world, this type of thing happens every day. Good, normal people, minding their own business, are suddenly killed in unforeseen accidents, or by terrorist bombs, or weather disasters. In the latter, thousands may die. Millions can be affected. Immediately children are cut off from parents, old people lose their sons and daughters, wives lose their husbands. There’s no answering the question, “Why Maria?” or “Why my children? Were they so evil that they had to die like this?” The heartache of loss lasts for years, sometimes for a whole lifetime….”
(this article is an excerpt from the July–August 2009 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)
To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 11, click this link:
The Sabbath Sentinel 