All-knowing? All-loving? All-powerful?

There is no reason why you should be familiar with the name Gale Parker. Parker was a graduate assistant on the 1970 Marshall University football team.

The Marshall team, on Nov.14, 1970, had just lost on the road to East Carolina, 17-14, and was preparing to fly home along with athletic department officials, boosters and physicians.

Parker had a seat on the filled-to-capacity plane but gave it up at the request of Deke Brackett, who was an assistant coach for MU.

Brackett was among the 75 people who died that evening when the MU plane crashed just short of the Huntingdon, West Virginia, airport.

Gale Parker gave up his seat and survived. Some might say God spared him.

There are other stories with a similar theme.

A man stops at a Manhattan pharmacy on his way to work to have a prescription filled. It took roughly 20 minutes.

Because of the delay, he is not sitting at his desk in the World Trade Center when a plane hijacked by terrorists hits the tower on Sept. 11, 2001. Some might say God spared him.

A parishioner of mine, 15 years ago, is on his way home from working in House Springs, Missouri.

A tree falls into the road directly in front of his vehicle at just the wrong moment. He has no opportunity to stop and hits the tree at full speed, killing him instantly.

If the tree had fallen a second later, it would have missed him, and he would have gone home to his wife and two small children. Some might say that God chose not to spare him.

Does God really orchestrate these moments -- moments when some people are spared and others are not?

Each time I teach my Old Testament literature class at Southeast Missouri State University, I introduce the students to the writings of Rabbi Harold Kushner.

Kushner wrote a landmark best-selling 1978 book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People."

Kushner's decision to write emerged from personal pain. The rabbi's 14-year old son had died after a struggle with progeria, a disease that causes premature aging.

His teenage boy, in other words, had died an old man.

Kushner, a believer in a good and just God, needed an answer for the tragedy that had befallen his innocent child.

Like suffering Job in the Old Testament, he wanted to know why disaster had struck his house. Unlike Job, who his eponymous book reveals never got an answer, Kushner found one.

God, Kushner believed, didn't orchestrate the contracting of the disease that took his son's life. No, no, Kushner decided, the boy got the disease and -- wait for it -- God couldn't stop it.

God, Kushner decided, is all-knowing and all-loving, but not all-powerful.

The denial of almighty power for God is a characteristic of process theology, of which Kushner is a leading proponent.

Follow the thinking here: God can't orchestrate moments in which people are either spared or are killed. God can't do either, because God doesn't have the power.

There are times, especially in the low tide of the soul, in which I think Kushner must be right.

It's a simple explanation -- God can't stop it.

But in more sanguine moments, "God can't stop it" seems too neat of an answer. Too pat. Events of such import cannot be wrapped up so quickly and placed on a shelf in our mental closets.

Scripture begins to argue with me. "All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

On these questions and many others, I await further light. I recall Jesus saying to his disciples, "I have so much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now." (John 16:12).

I'm counting on answers someday. For now, I'll just have to be patient.