SERMON:



SERMON: Fate or Coincidence

DATE: October 26, 2008

SPEAKER: Rev. Tim Ashton

TRANSCRIBER: David Irvin

Twice a year we have our Fantasy Auction. And in each of those Fantasy Auctions I offer the opportunity to purchase the privilege of picking out the sermon topic and having a discussion with me about that topic and essentially helping me to put it together. These have produced many interesting sermons. I’m not sure these topics would be ones I would have chosen, but almost invariably they seem to be topics that people very much enjoy.

Susan McClary bought the Fantasy Auction sermon, and she offered me four examples with the question: after you think about these examples, is it a matter of coincidence or is it fate? Is there some master plan or planner? And these are her examples.

One. When my son was playing volleyball in high school, I would sit next to one of the other moms. The next year she was on a board that I was on also, so we connected. And she became my best friend forever, right up to now, for 20 years. If we hadn’t happened to sit together, would I have approached her at the meeting? Was it planned so that I would have someone when I really needed her?

Two. The ad for the job that I recently held was in the newspaper for just one day. Was I meant to read the ads? It’s not something I usually do.

Three. I came to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst for the funeral of a very good friend. Years later I remembered it when I was searching spiritually. Was I meant to remember this?

Four. One winter I went out west to visit my favorite aunt. I thought of postponing the trip because the weather was not good, but I went anyway. A few months later she died and she hadn’t been sick. If I had waited until spring, I would not have gotten to see her. Was there some master plan?

Probably most of us have a story or two like this. Why didn’t we step off the curb into that speeding car? What made us stop? Amazing, intriguing, puzzles, coincidences. So let’s start by looking at the question of fate. As Susan said, is there a master plan? Or if you want to be theological about it, it would be predestination, the theological term. Is there somebody up there/out there who lays out the plan of our life?

Such an idea always sound great when things are going good. “Oh, my wonderful life is in the charge of this wonderful person/spirit and that’s why it’s so wonderful”. But there are, of course, two difficult questions. One, what in the world happens to free will and the validity of my actual making a choice? Two, there are the people who simply have, as far as we can tell, terrible lives. Why is the Master Planner so negligent about some people? Sort of on duty some days and off another.

Well, OK, Tim, let’s not be so giant and theological. How about maybe a guardian angel? Sort of smaller, simpler. So it’s back to the “How come I didn’t step off the curb?” Was it my guardian angel that just pulled me back? But of course, guardian angels crash on the same rocks that predestination crashes on. How come being a Guardian Angel is so typically a part-time activity? Why is not my guardian angel on duty ALL the time? And then there are those people who either do not have guardians or their guardian angels are just in a major fog.

So if it’s not predestination and it’s not just a coincidence, that stuff just happens, is there something in the middle? The way I think about it, if it isn’t PREdestination, is there at least SOME destination? Some purpose, some meaning, some connection? And I think that resonates with most of us. Our choices make a difference, they affect things. We live inside of the community.

Just as I needed it, I found tue article that answers our question; maybe it was a coincidence meant just for me? Here it is, “Seeing Double”.

Many scientific discoveries are made by more than one person at about the same time, even though they are working independently. Newton and Liebnitz both discovered calculus. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace each worked out the theory of evolution. Joseph Priestly and Karl Wilhelm Schiele each discovered oxygen. [This is the best one:] Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both invented the telephone at the same time; they filed notice with the Patent Office on the same day, though for some reason Bell gets all the credit. [Maybe it’s because he set up a successful business, I’m not sure.] Science historians refer to these incidences as “multiples” and some assert that great scientific discoveries, unlike great works of art, are not the work of solitary genius. Rather, there is something in the air, or, more concretely, previous research lays a groundwork, makes a context which enables people to reach similar conclusions. So, just as previous research lays a ground for scientists to do the same sorts of thing, so we can see perhaps an ethos of our times: trends, fashions, intellectual currents, community connections, the kind of way that our families work. (Christian Century)

Next, what I want to share with you is a mid-Victorian poem from the great Unitarian poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He’s one of those reasons that there is so much influence of basic Unitarian Universalist philosophy and outlook in American culture. Here’s his poem “The Builders”:

“All are architects of fate, working on these walls of time.

Some work with great and massive deeds, some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing is useless or low. Each thing has its place.

What seems an idle show, strengthens and supports the rest.

Time is with materials filled and creates structure that we raise.

Our todays and yesterdays are the blocks with which we build.

In earlier days of art, builders worked with greatest care

on even minute and unseen parts. The Gods saw everywhere.

Let us do our work as they did and attend to both the seen and the unseen.

May we make the house where all may dwell, beautiful, entire and clean.

Build today, then, strong and sure with a firm and ample base

and ascending strong and secure. Tomorrow will find its place.

Only so can we attain those summits where the eye sees the world

as one vast plane among the boundless reach of sky.

On a more mundane note, economics, certainly the subject of almost endless discussion in these times. Anyway, Robert Samuelson wrote in the Op-Ed pages.

A dozen years ago, James Grant, one of the wisest commentators on Wall Street, wrote a book called The Trouble with Prosperity. Grant’s survey of financial history captured his crusty theory of a kind of predestination. This is his theory: if things seem splendid, they will get worse. Success inspires overconfidence and excess. If things seem dismal, they will get better. Crises spawn opportunities and progress and invention. Our triumphs and follies folly a rhythm that, thought it can be influenced [they can throw $700 billion at it] – nonetheless, these trends cannot be entirely repealed.

So if it’s not predestination and it’s not coincidence, there is a spot in the middle, something complex and in between. As Unitarian Universalists, we call it our 7th Principle, the interdependent web of all existence of which we are all a part. If you are in the interdependent web, you influence it and it, the great big web that it is, clearly influences us. It’s a statement of philosophy or theology.

Now we get down to the question of coincidence. And I’ve decided that my favorite song on coincidence is from “South Pacific”:

Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger

across a crowded room.

And somehow you know, you know even then,

that you will see her again and again.

Who can explain it? Who can tell you why?

Fools give you reasons, wise men never try.

Well, I must class myself not among the wise men because I shall tackle this question. [laughter] So she sat next to another woman, Susan McClary did. She became her friend. She remembered a memorial service and found a church home. She didn’t put off a trip and she saw her aunt.

The “South Pacific” poem, though the author demurs the possibility of explanation, is a great example that really sorts it out: A lady decides for her own reasons to go to a party. And here we have this guy who decides for his own reasons to go to that party, and at just the right moment in this huge massive crowd, they look across and their eyes lock. This is what C. G. Jung, the psychologist and mythologist, called synchronicity. There’s a completely separate chain of cause for her and for him, but when they look across and make eye-connect, a new chain of cause emerges.

So, we really take notice if, after 50 years of marriage, we’re looking across the room at that lady who we looked at across the room 50 years ago. Clearly there was something in that look. But, you know, it might have been you had a date and said “God, he’s a clunk”. Or maybe you had several dates and then it kind of went sour. Who would remember? And maybe after a messy divorce, you would say “Oh, God, it was a stupid infatuation”.

The important part of coincidences is how you manage them. And management is the trick. I call it cautious optimism. It is very nicely expressed in the wisdom of the Chinese farmer. Remember, that’s the story we did a few weeks ago that Carl Thitchener, our former minister, loved and it’s great. And you know what the farmer says over and over, every time something happens. He says “It could be good, it could be bad, we don’t know yet”. And that is how one approaches a coincidence.

So you sit down next to someone. That’s an opportunity. But you have to be careful you don’t go overboard and remain cautious. It is important to allow the possibility that an opportunity may be there. I recommend the middle ground of cautious optimism.

After all, Susan could have been the shy type that never sat next to anybody. She might have sat on the end of the bench all by herself. Never gonna make a friend, not that way. But if you just walk up to someone and think to yourself “Oh, I can see my best friend is about to come into my life!”. [laughter] Who knows who that person might be?

Unguarded optimism easily degenerates into magical thinking. “Oh, I have a guardian angel, I never get in trouble. I am always lucky. I never get sick. I trust everybody.

And you know what that leads to: taking stupid risks, becoming a deluded, manic gambler. Failing to get medical help. I remember saying to my old New England doc: “I never get strep”. And he finished me off with some gentle New England wisdom: “No time like the present.” he said. If you just trust everybody, you can get done in by a conman easy as anyting.

Coincidence? Yes. An opportunity, possibly; but be careful.

So, as a summary, let’s go back and look at the points. The idea of fate or a master plan is great as long as you have a great life, but if you don’t, it’s kind of a depressing thought, unless you need an excuse for how bad your life is. But even then I’m not sure it helps a person figure out what to do next. Further, there’s the problem of justifying all those bad things that the Master Planner has planned for us. Why didn’t the planner give us a better life? And, if our lives are pre-planned, what happens to choice and the meaning of my decisions?

So if our lives are not pre-planned, and it’s not simply a coincidence, we can gain some perspective from our 7th Unitarian Universalist Principle, the interdependent web of all existence. We are all in this together, for better or for worse. Our decisions and their decisions make a difference, whether it’s economic trends, or multiples, or the beautiful positive vision of “The Builders” in the Longfellow poem.

And finally, coincidences are tricky. Unrelated events do occur together. Cautious optimism is advised. If we don’t take the risk that they present, we may never discover a friend; but if we make an assumption that we are always protected, we fall into magical thinking. And so we recommend the advice of the old Chinese farmer: when something happens, always say to yourself in the back of your mind “It could be good, it could be bad, it’s too soon to know”, and I think we’ll make it through the day.

Amen

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