Our unmannerly entry into this world has to be one of life’s profoundest mysteries if not the mystery. How in the name of Melchizedek are we fixed in time and space?

I mean, what determines the who, when and where of our grand entry? Who’s behind the curtain? What’s the extent of gadgetry behind nature’s fickle, incomprehensible distribution system? Who gets born here? Who gets born there? Why are we not someone else? How many times do we need to hear: “There but for the grace of God go I.” Most certainly the circumstance of anyone’s birth will determine advantages and disadvantages. And, no, I don’t believe for a minute that God is playing favoritism.

My older brother was born in October 1944, and to his good fortune, here in a free-market American society. They were the war years, the worst of years, our father, island hopping in the Pacific. Two years my senior, and with WWII raging beyond our borders, my brother’s advantages were diapers, ration cards, milk and Pablum, a roof over his head and a mother’s love. Had he been born 4,400 miles away in Budapest, Hungary, he may have had a mother’s love but........

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