Providence

Brigitte and I spent a good part of our day yesterday discussing the meaning of fate—which in turn prompted yesterday’s post. But, of course—having once entered that portal—we also talked about providence. The difference between these two—fate and providence—is quite marked. The word providence is also rooted in the past; it used to mean foresight, the direct translation of the Latin, and thus prudence. Its elevated meaning, as God’s guidance and care or as God’s power sustaining and guiding human destiny, is relatively new. It dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century. Fate produces an impression of the impersonal. Therefore no one says: “How could a just Fate let this happen?” But we hear the question asked about God.

Strange how some things coincide. Late yesterday came word of a death in our extended circle of friends. Stephanie, a young woman of twenty-four, passed away. She died of a genetically inherited condition, the same condition that had taken her mother quite young. She died after a very brave and determined struggle, as she wished, at home—rather than in the hospital where she’d spent many of the last months of her life. Our linkage to Stephanie is through her grandparents.

It occurred to me that in this very cloudy world of matter, Brigitte and I had been notified, as it were, of this impending event through the invisible ether—before the e-mail arrived in the evening. Knew it—yet did not. Knew it but not in its personal reference. More than a hundred people die in the Detroit metroplex every day, but none as closely linked to us as Stephanie had been. Felt it—and thoughts of fate and providence arose spontaneously.

Brigitte had been praying every night for quite a while now for the rescue of the miners caught underground in Chile…and for Stephanie’s release from suffering. Providence is a difficult concept because it demands the suspension of human judgment. If God provides, God has reasons for everything that transpires, understands the why of everything, and ensures the best possible outcome. It takes less inner power, it seems to me, to endure the blows of fate than to accept providential arrangements that seem to human eyes as unjust, arbitrary, and a wanton disregard of all that should belong to a just and loving God. It requires the curbing of our pride. We’re proud of our understanding, of our power to penetrate all secrets. But we know next to nothing. If we saw all things exactly as they are, if we understood the really big picture, we’d see the sublime logic even of a death that makes us roll our eyes and shake our heads.