As we rejoice with thankfulness that my wife's brother seems to be all right and is being sent home from the hospital today, I also think about some words from Plato's long ago Timaeus.  In this relatively short text, Plato, once again using the guise of Socrates, ponders how the world began.
     He first establishes that there must be intelligence in order for the cosmos to be the way it is.  Unintelligibility, he notes, could not produce such orderly marvel and wonder.  Ironically, this is also what some of my atheist friends say:  there must be an intelligence (not, they quickly point out, "the" intelligence) out of which or from which the universe found form and being.
     Plato then notes that to this intelligence we must add the notion of necessity.  There must be a reason for the cosmos to be.  There must be a compulsion, an overriding purpose, a sort of force that is driving this intelligence to fathom and create the world and the universe in which it moves.  Intelligence alone will not produce a cosmos.  Many people are smart.  It must have a reason to do so.
     And why else would an intelligence create other than love?  What other necessity would be propelling it to birth a universe?  Sure, one might say, it may be seeking its own aggrandizement or glory, but given who we are and the beauty of the world this seems unlikely.
     I cannot say why John is all right and other people in similar situations are not, but I can say that, if our lives are to have any point, any point at all, we do well to remember Plato's observations.  There is intelligence, and there is necessity.  Ultimately, however, there must be love.
     Once again, I am grateful for the fact of God.