... Of God and Men (The Ka Blog)

I've never liked the word "destiny." That word has always brought with it (at least to my reasoning) a sense of inevitability; that everything is set a certain way: the play is written, and we are but players... "Fate" can easily be read the same way, but my mind has always marked "fate" more as how things turned out, not necessarily having to do with cause. Neither of these definitions is necessarily completely accurate. In reality, the two words are synonyms, and either could imply a sense of "predestiny" or not, but I always like to assign my own personal interpretive meanings to words and then use them accordingly. As such, I think of destiny as something that is predetermined, and fate as a random result, and because of that, neither has ever really seemed like the appropriate word for how I think things like that work.

I can't believe that time and everything that happens is completely predetermined because I believe that God gave us free will, we can choose how we live our lives and what to believe in, so our lives are simplly not predestined. But I also believe that God has His hand in our lives and how things work out, so I also can't (at least not completely) believe in the idea that things just happen because they happen, and it's all random and crazy and unpredictable. Since those two ideas are generally how I like to differentiate destiny and fate, what I needed was a third idea and a word to accompany. That's where "ka" came in...

When I was a young teenager, I was riding in the back of my sister's car, and picked up a book that was lying around back there called Desperation by Stephen King. I was intrigued by the blurb and started decided to start reading it a bit. Soon, I was hooked, and thus was born my love or Stephen King. After that, I started eating up much of the King library of books and that would eventually lead me to picking up The Gunslinger, the first of the Dark Tower series. For those not in the know, The Dark Tower is Stephen King's magnum opus. A dark fantasy with a side of a spaghetti western that touches King's entire body of work, some on such a deep level that their connection is deeply intertwined with the Dark Tower. And ka is a central idea to The Dark Tower, as well as some of those other deeply-intwined books, such as Insomnia or Rose Madder. The Dark Tower became my favorite of King's books, and I always love the Tower-related King stories a bit more than the rest.

Anyway, "ka" in the series is defined as something somewhat like "destiny" but not quite. Destiny seemed an insufficient way to describe what ka really was. Because ka is something that shapes and gives meaning to the characters' lives and actions; it gives direction, and it might even be inescapable at times, but even with all that, you still have the choice to defy ka. Not necessarily a wise thing to do... but you can. You have the choice of letting ka rule your life or not. In the end, it's hard to really define, but I think the best definition of ka ultimately came in book 4 of The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass, which described ka as being like a wind. And that's how I think God works in our lives...

But first, more on each of our individual ka. In theory, everyone has their own ka, which we may say is shaped both by what we want for our lives, our personalities, our intentions; but at the same time also shaped by things that are beyond our control. Everyone's personal ka is a force unto itself, which means that you get to make choices for your life, and where you want it to go, but since everyone and everything has a sense of ka, those things may affect your ka, in turn. What this really means to me is that life is a balance of the things you purpose for your life and the random consequences that result from forces in the world or other people. Purpose and Randomness are two important factors to keep in mind when talking about ka. Ka theoretically deals with the Purpose, things that happen for a reason, but it is a counterbalance to the force of Random, things that just happen: the wild cards.

And make no mistake: I believe there is Random in the world. I don't believe that everything that happens happens with a Purpose. There's six billion people in the world all with free will, and that kind of open-ended freedom is bound to create some random occurrences. It's unavoidable. Here's the cool thing about how I think God works, though: despite the fact that I think there are Random forces aplenty at work in the world, I believe God works to create Purpose even when something Random occurs. I don't think God makes bad things happen, but He does work to make good out of the bad where He can. At least, that's my opinion.

So how does He do this? That's where we get back to "ka like a wind." I think its important to remember that God is not a puppet-master. He's not up there pulling our strings, forcing us into this or that. He doesn't do that to anyone (again: thus the Random). Doing so would remove our free will, which would arguably defy the point (or at least what many of us think the point is; the ever-questionable "meaning of life"). So how is God to work in a free world? Like a wind, of course!

The wind is a force that can be used or it can abuse. A gentle wind may push us in a certain direction, or push something toward us. Depending on just how gentle that wind is, we may ignore it and strike our own path. I think God works in our lives by pushing things toward us or us toward certain things, but it's up to us whether we utilize the wind to its full potential. On the other hand, sometimes the wind can be a very strong force. It can blow hard enough to force an outcome, and I think that occasionally, God's will may blow like a very strong wind. There may sometimes be things that simply have to happen, and in those cases: ka like a wind!

The point is: between our ka, everyone's ka, and God's Ka (or whatever else you want to call it; maybe you don't like the word "ka"), I think everything is connected, and everything affects something else. I believe God uses that, and I believe we can use that. But that's basically how I think it works.

"Well," you may say, "that's all fine and good, but what does that really mean? Let's say - for the sake of argument - that you're right. What does it matter? How does that actually affect my life?"

Well, maybe none at all. But then again... I think Purpose is something worth believing in. I think Random is too, actually. And I think the fact that things are connected, and that meaning may be formed even from the Random... it's all things that can help to know... Do you know it just 'cuz I said it? I suppose not. But that's where Faith comes in (a subject, I plan to return to soon, by the way). Also, I think it can help to try to find your ka, whether you believe there's a larger Ka at work in your life or not.

Maybe it's easy for me to say because my bigger purpose, if I have one, may be easy to find. I have one good natural-born talent in my life, and that's to write. Determining that that's my ka isn't exactly a stretch, but others may be tougher. But there's more to ka than that too... I don't want to get too specific here with names or details, but there are things in my life which I can look back on and I feel certain I can see ka at work in my life. There's a very good friend of mine who I have discovered in hindsight, I had multiple opportunities to meet. Multiple opportunities in very different venues. Maybe this is just my faith talking, but I believe that this was someone I was supposed to meet, who was supposed to be in my life. I missed the first opportunity, but later met them in a very different way, and I think that we have had profound impacts on each others' lives. You can say happenstance. Coincidence, perhaps? But I don't believe in coincidence. If there's one thing ka leaves no room for it's coincidence. I don't know for certain why this person needed to be in my life (though I have my theories), or why I may have needed to be in theirs... But I believe it was supposed to happen. I also believe we still could have missed each other. I don't think that ka was blowing hard enough to force anything, but I think it was blowing hard enough to provide more than a single opportunity.

But that's just me. Take it or leave it. But for me, I believe in ka. And I like to consider it a primary force of how the world works.