Originally Posted by ketzer

I can relate to almost all of that, and I expect there are many who can see the meaning and purpose and even the beauty in the dark side of the life experience as well as the light. Yet one does run across many who can't seem to see it. Their answer to pretty much any question in life reflects a world view that there is no God, there is no purpose, it's all just a big unfair, unjust, random darkness.
I found that as I moved from childhood into young adulthood, my focus moved from my own little world to the world at large. I was transitioning from a child, to a youth, to an adult. From one who expects to be taken care of, to one who must make his own path in the world and play his part in making that world. School had always been something I had to endure until I could go outside and play. Now, I really wanted to know about the world and how it worked. And of course, much of what I learned appalled me. The wars, the genocide, the slavery, the injustice, the abuse, and the inhumanity that mankind practiced toward one another. Why should it be? Where was God?
For a long time I became that person who couldn't see past all that darkness to see what is beautiful and meaningful in the whole picture. That person still resides in me, it remains as one of my "phantom selves", and from time to time still moves onto center stage. But as I grew older and endured some of my own major trials and injustices, whether visited upon me by God or men, and survived them, and looked back, I did see how they moved and shaped who I became. A new "phantom self" began to emerge and take it's place with all of the rest, more tempered, more contemplative, and hopefully wiser. One that can find meaning and see beauty even in the darkest of events and things. Though I realize that I can't show God to anyone else, I do seem to see God in just about everything, but only when I stop judging God and the world and instead just look at it and allow it to show me what it wants to show me. Only when the right "phantom self" is allowed to take the stage.
Now days when I hear a younger person (or any age really) raging about the meaningless and random injustice in life, I hear one of my "phantom selves" say "Oh, give it a rest already!" However, I also realize that I could just as well direct that statement at one of my own phantom selves as well. I am reminded that the perspective I choose in life, the phantom self I allow to take the stage, has so very much to do with how 'I' see the world, how the world sees me, and the story line the play will end up following. So in that sense, that person raging at the world, reminds me to be careful which phantom self I give my attention to, and I suppose that is something to be grateful for.