Dec. 7: The fruits of destiny

When I was 10 years old, I decided to start keeping a diary. The first line in the first entry was this: "How wonderful it is to see God's creation."

The inspiration came while walking home from St. Gerard's School in southwest Calgary, where I was in Grade 4. It was late winter and there was a chinook, so I was walking home with my parka unzipped and my toque in my hand. As I walked down Hooke Road, which is where our house was, I saw a whole lot of birds flying across the sky. They were calling to each other in their birdie way and something about them made me stop and watch them for a while. When they were gone, I finished the walk home. There was something new in my spirit, like my soul had gone through a car wash. I felt like God had used those birds to smile at me.

So that night, I wrote about my encounter with the birds. I'm sure there was nothing in there to rival St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, but, if anything, it might have kick started a lifelong love affair with writing. 

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I was inspired to start a diary after reading EB White's The Trumpet of the Swan, which is about a mute swan who learns to play the trumpet so he can win his lady love. (I read that book when I was still young enough to accept the totally ridiculous premise.) One of the characters was an 11-year-old boy named Sam Beaver who kept a diary. He wrote about his first encounter with the mute swan and how it untied his shoelace instead of honking a greeting. I thought that must be a truly special encounter, a majestic communion between man and nature, and I congratulated Mr. White who was able to capture such magic in his prose. (Later, I would learn that he also penned the much more beloved Charlotte's Web and co-authored The Elements of Style, truly one of the most seminal grammar manuals in the English language.)

So yeah, I guess you could say that EB White - for me at least - harbored the fruits of destiny.

 

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I wrote Mr. White a fan letter sometime in the early 80s and received a stock reply about a month later. I was disappointed that Mr. White hadn't taken the time to answer me personally but, as the letter pointed out, he received dozens of letters everyday from people around the world and that it wasn't possible to reply to them all. So Mr. White became a role model. One day, I wanted to be a writer who was so beloved that he received dozens of letters everyday from people around the world. I thought it would be wonderful to be so adored.

Little did I know that some of those letters accused Mr. White of blasphemy as his books had the gall to depict talking animals.

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EB White died in 1985. The birds in the flock that I observed in 1983 are, likely, all dead now as well. By a strange coincidence, I almost died that year too. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Apparently, I was about ten seconds from death's door before I was rescued and taken to the hospital. I confess that sometimes, in my dark periods, I wonder if the world would be a better place had I not survived that night. I was so in love with God then. It gets harder to walk the straight and narrow once you enter your teenaged years.

But the fruits of destiny, or the will of God, was that I was to survive. There was work for me to do. Thanks to my little bro. And Dad.

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In Western Christianity, we like to say that God has a plan - or a destiny - for all of us. It's hard to think that way when you visit some parts of the world and you see children living in garbage dumps. You have to ask yourself if God doesn't have plans for people who live in certain geographical areas. Or maybe we think of destiny like some kind of Hollywood blockbuster - Luke Skywalker's destiny to save the galaxy or Harry Potter's destiny to conquer the borgs.* Maybe our destinies are to grow crops or die in childhood. I don't know. I didn't design the jigsaw puzzle. I'm not sure how we all fit in.

And I sure haven't come close to solving the mystery of man's free will and God's sovereignty. The closest I can do is allude to the story of Pastor Aloysius and the marionette. "I am God," the pastor said. Then, pointing at the marionette, said: "This is man."

"What do the strings represent?" asked the student.

Pastor Aloysius said this: "Free will."

Yes, and Proverbs tells us that there is more hope for a fool than a man who is wise in his own eyes.

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The prophet Jonah was destined to go to Nineveh and urge the people there to repent. Jonah did not do that. Instead, he fled by ship and was consequently thrown overboard. What happened next spawned the most famous story to come out of the minor prophets - a great big fish swallowed Jonah and he stayed inside for three whole days. Then the fish regurgitated Jonah who then went quickly to Nineveh to preach his message of repentance. (This is partly because most people would rather do anything than be stuck in a smelly fish belly for half a week.)

But something happens in the first chapter of Jonah that a lot of people miss - that some sailors had their faith in God strengthened because of their encounter with the titular character.

Let's start at the beginning. God says go. Jonah says no. He gets on a ship to get as far away from Nineveh as possible. Then a big storm hits and the sailors are afraid. They ask their pagan gods to tell them why this is happening and then it becomes apparent that their passenger is on the lam from YHWH. So they toss him overboard and immediately, the storm goes away and then the sailors GET RIGHT WITH GOD.

So if Jonah didn't disobey, then the sailors wouldn't have had that opportunity. Well, maybe they would have later but I hope you see my point. God knew Jonah's heart so well that He knew he was going to run and He used that rebellion to bring even more people to repentance. 

The kicker is that Jonah goes to Ninevah and tells the people to repent or they will be destroyed. And the people DO repent. This pisses** Jonah off because he really wanted to see Ninevah punished because he believed they were awful and deserving of judgment. (Jonah must have believed he was pretty amazing by comparison.) The end of Jonah's book sees God lecturing Jonah on the importance of forgiveness and mercy.

I love mercy. Gotta pray for it all the time, my friends. Pray for mercy and to be merciful.

The fruits of destiny are in all of us. They are enshrined not in our DNA but in our past and our futures and before the Great White Throne itself.    

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* Yes, I did that on purpose.

** I include that word here because I'm not sure it's considered a profanity anymore. It's in the King James Bible, after all.