A couple--of acquaintance only through the net--had the great good fortune to become pregnant, followed almost immediately by the great misfortune of a spontaneous miscarriage. One of the couple related their story, and ended by railing against God.

In some religions, this is a well-established tradition. Those raised in a Christian environment might not understand this, but I understood both his feelings and his words.

As I was having new difficulties of my own, I responded in kind.

Both you and your wife have my support and understanding.

If you haven't read what Ambrose Bierce had to say about gOD, this might be time to read it. Or it might not; I don't know. One that comes to mind is his observation that prayer reduces gOD to a kind of cosmological bellhop, of the not very bright or reliable kind.

Yeah, gOD exists, all right. I've dumped my own share of anger into this froup. The root causes of all those things came from events in which I had no voice, no choice, no control. At least now I can laugh about being a transsexual. I can at least talk about abuse. But I'm still coming to terms with gOD's latest gift, a compressed disk that likes to herniate. I'm just beginning to realize that I'm going to have to shape the rest of my life around the twin vultures of avoiding stress to my back and making sure it's strong enough to take the stresses I can't avoid. I get to look forward to random, unprovoked occurrences of crippling pain, and the recovery periods are getting longer. If I live long enough, I'll probably get to have a date with a doctor who will rip open my spine and use a soldering iron to fuse a couple of vertebrae. I get to re-evaluate my decision not to have sex reassignment surgery, since most of the better ways to take care of my back involve the use of public dressing rooms. Golly gee, another date with a doctor, one who will turn my privates inside out and stuff them where the sun don't shine. Thanks, gOD; you're a real pal.

I got to pay for a visit to an abortion clinic once. There was nothing to abort, though; my ex- had a spontaneous miscarriage a couple of weeks before. She didn't tell me, either. She knew it was over, but I didn't. Why did we go? Just to make sure.

Justice? It's a human concept, not a divine one. It's light is reflected, not emitted. And like all human institutions, it crumbles. It fades. Inside Lady Justice's robe is a label that says, "Do not wash or dry-clean," and she's taking it out on us. Justice is blind, not blind-folded. As blind as gOD, perhaps.

Some people found this a bit raw. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they found my rant to be inappropriate. They are certainly welcome to have their own feelings on this, and to deal with life's difficulties in their own way. But my feelings are mine, and I felt the need to affirm this.

In the "For What It's Worth" department (yes, this and a couple of dollars will buy you a decent cup of coffee if you shop around):

It doesn't matter whether god exists or not. It doesn't matter whether hir name is God, or gOD, or Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, or fate, or Zeus, or whatever.

It doesn't matter whether the things that happen to us are good, or bad, or both, or whether we'll be thankful for them some day. They happen. It doesn't matter whether we even like these things or not; that won't stop any of it from happening.

But if we don't like it, we have a right to complain about it. We have a duty to complain about it, and that duty is to us, not to God or to anyone else. It doesn't even matter to whom we do our complaining, or what form we choose to shape our complaint.

What matters is that we get it out. If we hold it in, it will destroy us. I choose not to be destroyed.