World Lit--Still Reading "Monkey"

A student doing math research has posted information about the Lo Shu legend of the magic square on this web page: http://mathforum.org/alejandre/magic.square/loshu.html . Wu Ch'eng-en probably assumes his readers will get this allusion when Sandy makes his boat with his skull collection and Kuan-yin's red gourd. Interestingly, a classic Japanese story is called "The Floating World"--the idea being that we should approach life that way, just letting it float us gently down the stream. I wonder what magic squares have to do with going with the flow? Could it be that when we are all lined up inside, so that the numbers come out the same no matter what, that we feel that lift of being truly free?

I think one of my core values feels something like that as I fumble around for it in my mind right now. We often wonder what would have happened if we'd made a different decision, some minute move to the left or right, taken the road not taken, kicked off the butterfly effect, how our lives would have been different. But I wonder. Could it be that eventually all roads would have led to the same place, the place we were supposed to be? How fatalistic--how Calvinist--does that sound! But it doesnt feel that way--feels downright Arminian! Gets to the paradox of how human free will and God's omniscience and timelessness can coexist--and explains how I can get from the fascination with an Asian concept that I don't quite get to the familiar comfort of Christianity by way of a circuitous mathematical pathway that seemed wandering and circular but was as sure as the straight line of a magic square.