The occasional car haphazardly merging from the on ramp onto the expressway, enough to make your heart skip a beat. The more than occasional snafoo in the work place. The frequent nonsensical micro-irritations we shoot at each other back and forth through the waking day.
St. Thomas’ ancient counterpart Aristotle, in his timeless book about the Natural World in his Physics (btw a must read for any homeschooled high school student aspiring to the advanced study of the natural sciences)
asked the question: are there truly accidents or chaotic occurrences in nature that go against the reasoned design of the natural cosmos? His basic answer was “No.” If memory serves me, the explanation is something like this: because of natural decay there does appear to to be an element of the chaotic in nature. BUT, that is just an appearance. The human mind, like any created natural thing, experiences decay or loss of composite form and function, the result being a mental deception that the presence of decay outside our mind is chaotic or absurd. The fact is every level of natural existence is composed of a cycle of life, of things cominguu into being, that nature being maintained, and in due course that nature decomposing or decaying.
St. Thomas agrees, but illuminated by Divine Faith which reveals the nature of a fallen world in need of Redemption, and therefore a Divine Redeemer, he sees the apparent chaos or decay as a result of Original Sin. All things in this life must suffer loss, hardship, decay, and death. Including dogs, humans, and even stars and planets.
What seems to be an escalating level of absolute chaos and absurdity then in post-modern, post-apocalyptic end of Western Civilization society, is a combo of Original Sin in full force but also the devolved state of our modern minds that sees Darkness everywhere in persons, places, and things which in fact ARE NOT as dominated by darkness as they seem. There is rhyme and reason to everything in God’s Providence, including crazy drivers in traffic (Tulsa is notorious for bad drivers) or sometimes obnoxious co-workers. There is reason and order behind the apparent chaos. Behind the vices and failings are human beings fighting to preserve the integrity of their human natures, as they perceive it.
And so at the end of a long day of occasionally absurd encounters, I am reminded that everything in natural Providence, even in situations out of control, are absolutely in fact governed by reason, truth, order, goodness, and beauty. If we look hard enough to see it.