Miracles and Tragedies

It's kind of odd how these two things, tragedies and miracles, are so closely related.


A tragedy is a series of events that occur, coincidentally, with a negative outcome.


A miracle is usually defined (except for birth) as an initiating negative event followed by a series of events that lead to a positive outcome. The latter is also thought to be entwined with divine intervention. Let us compare and contrast:


Flight 1549 into the Hudson was deemed a miracle by the press. The jet engine v.s. poultry was the initial negative event. The following coincidences were that this happened very close to the airport so that the plane was not that high, the soft Hudson river was below. The pilot was a trained glider pilot and often flew gliders during his off duty hours. He was also accompanied by an exemplary staff of flight attendants and let's not forget the co-pilot. My friend told me that this co-pilot started the 20 pages of the 'crashing manual' and only got through one page before they had to 'wing it'. Is that where the phrase comes from? Doesn't make me feel to secure in flight travel but I digress. This team managed to get everyone out of the plane and were then picked up by boats nearby. Everyone survived without a scratch.


Had the fowl not flown into the path of an oncoming air craft the fact that a glider pilot, exemplary air staff, Hudson river, helpful boaters would not have even been mentioned. So is this divine intervention?


OK so let's consider the tragedy. Which I really don't like to even think about but my mother feels it necessary to share many of them with me. A tragedy could be partly designed by someone, such as 911, or it could be a car accident. The coincidences for a car accident are that the two drivers leave there homes at the specific time so that the two cars are on exactly the same road at exactly the same time and meet at the exact moment necessary for them to cause a collision. Was there sinister intervention or just a series of coincidences?