What you see is what you get. But we dare not have it that way. And so we ooh and aah together over the fine raiment of Meaning. We discern in it all. What happens when the tragic occurs is that the conspiracy is momentarily broken.
Someone shouts, wails, that there is nothing there.
Life and the end of it. Warts and all. The tragic event threatens to bring about a crisis of faith, a shattering of the conviction that life has meaning, that God will not let us fall. The crisis of faith can also be brought about by a slower, more rational, less emotionally-laden process. Gradually, as I listened, talked, and studied, that faith wavered, crumbled, and eventually collapsed.