One of the nice things about getting old(er) is that I can look back and marvel at how God has directed my steps and ordered my days in ways I could never have anticipated.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that tragic events didn’t touch my life. I wouldn’t be writing this blog at all if my beloved Diane hadn’t been taken from me, with little warning (though in retrospect there were signs) thirty-seven and a half months ago. And there have been many other, lesser but still difficult, things throughout the decades. An admixture of Joy and Woe characterizes every life; and as to why the ratio varies from one life to the next, as Alan Paton wrote, that is a secret.
But I am amazed at how good things can emerge even out of tragedy, because God is the God of second chances, and he is in the business of redemption and restoration. Even foolish choices, of which I have made my share — none of them involving cats, of course — are not necessarily fatal, though one should decide as wisely as one can given the information at one’s disposal. No one’s story is over until it’s over; and, as C. S. Lewis noted, not all who choose wrong roads perish, though when an error is discovered, the thing to do is to turn around, not to continue stubbornly on the same path.
William Lane Craig has made something of a career writing about “middle knowledge”, which was an idea invented by Spanish philosopher Luis de Molina (1535-1600), whose portrait on Wikipedia makes him look as if he had no chin, an awkward sort of physiognomy if you ask me. He probably consumed his meals through a straw, but I appear to be digressing now. “Middle knowledge” means the awareness of what would have happened if alternate paths had been taken, and Craig argues that such knowledge belongs only to God, who knows all contrafactuals and their corollaries. It’s hard to say how large a change in current circumstances would dramatically alter reality downstream, but I once wrote a short story about a man whose life was transformed by a single snowflake. I’m having difficulty selling the film rights to this story, but I have a slow internet connection.
I think about all the “snowflake events” in my life, and I’m astonished by them. For instance, if I had been a slightly better trombone player back in 1968, I probably wouldn’t be alive today. I have many such stories, and they remind me that our lives are filled with the “hinges of history”, as Thomas Cahill calls them, the pivotal moments that change everything. We can’t peer far enough into the future to see the chains of causation and contingency, and to know where the dominoes will fall. But God does. And, so often, what others mean for evil, God intends for good.
Some philosophers like to imagine that each choice creates a set of branching pathways that lead to alternative universes, a concept I strongly hope to be false. Susan and I are planning our honeymoon now, but I have completely ruled out any trips to parallel universes. “But the travel costs have never been lower,” she suggested in an imaginary conversation. “When you don’t want to arrive at a certain destination, the price point is largely irrelevant,” was my rebuttal. I am often quick-witted in the world of my imagination, always ready with a bon mot, but in the real world, not so much. In any event, I like the world that God actually created and instantiated, and I’m glad that he overrides my bad choices and redeems my circumstances, especially when I am cooperating with him, but sometimes even when I am stubborn about things. He knows my frame, and remembers that I am dust, though I shower daily.
If I had never gone to college, or never had met Diane (or Susan), or never had any cats (a dismal prospect indeed), what would my life be like today? I don’t know, but thankfully, I don’t need to know. There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will; and in weal and in woe, God is at work to accomplish his holy and compassionate purposes, which will find their entire fulfillment in the kairos. Until then, I limp toward glory, step by baby step; and I’m glad that I don’t have to try to be a master of the multiverse. The plans of the mind belong to man [or woman], but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord; and I’m glad for that every day. It’s enough for me to try to master lesser things, like cleaning out the cat's litter box. “Fluffy, have you ever considered altering your daily fiber intake?”
I am curious about yet hopeful that you and Susan may choose to honeymoon north of Highway 8, south of Highway 10, east of Highway 47, or west of Interstate 94. There are glorious works of God to be visited in all directions beyond these concrete boundaries.