whose fault?

Life throws horrible things at people.  But somehow we don't like the idea of arbitrary 'bad' happening.  We have a desire that if something bad happens it must be directly linked to some fault in that person.  Karma is one word for this idea, but it is fairly universal.  It is comforting to feel that someone experiencing poverty or pain is in some measure responsible for their own situation; it helps me relax a bit when I am confronted by people who are so much worse off than I am.

We see them everyday.  I buy, or don't buy, from the Big Issue woman as I sit in my car at the traffic light.

But then there is the man who wanders about in the traffic waving and talking to the air.  The alcoholic man in the parking lot who keeps trying to con me into giving him money ... I want it to be their fault.

John and his friends saw a man who had been born blind, and they asked their teacher, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  The constant question; who can we blame?  But the answer was surprising: "Neither!"  It wasn't anybody's fault.

That is a disturbing thought.  I wonder what other questions it raises in terms of a spiritual quest.