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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> Do you not believe in chance?

I use "chance" as in a chance happening, something unexpected, 
unpredictable and presumably uninfluenced by human behavior.

The fully alive person expects chance to appear from time to time. If 
it is a desired chance and one has prepared for it, then it is 
opportunity taken; if one is not prepared then it is opportunity 
lost. If the chance happening is considered negative, the same 
preparedness condition will determine the outcome.

Tornadoes are acts of Nature as are all factors of weather including 
floods, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and 
tsunamis. All of these are known to occur from time to time in 
certain places so they are predictable and therefore not chance 
happenings. It is unreasonable to live in Tornado Alley and to be 
surprised by a funnel-shaped cloud containing high-speed winds 
whirling like an atomic dervish. If a tornado flattens your 
neighbor's house but not yours it may be that yours was properly 
built for predictable high winds but your neighbor's house was not. A 
tornado today may touch down five miles away; next year one may touch 
your house. The fully alive person will be neither surprised nor unprepared.

You ponder the place of birth. Take it further and ponder the choice 
of parents. The Soul's Code, by James Hillman, posits that our 
soul/guardian angel/daimon chooses our parents for its own selfish 
purposes. A provocative theory that changed how I muse on life. I put 
factors of birth into my bucket of Interesting Stuff Not Presently 
Known. I am comfortable with that bucket. The sovereign thrill of 
life allows us each to choose our answers to these things. Some 
choose spiritual or religious answers. Others of us choose to merrily 
focus on what is known, have a beer and await further developments.