Down the Road

Can the Fortune-Teller see what's coming down the road?

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“If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you” (Calvin Coolidge, President, 1923-1929)

That’s small comfort when number ten runs you over. Still, the exception proves the rule. Ninety percent of all worries come to nothing. We all know that. It doesn’t stop our needless worrying. Certain people seem to enjoy worrying.; they obsess on what might go wrong, even when the probability of a problem is slight to none. My first lesson on pointless worrying came from my ninth-grade literature class. We were reading Shakespeare’s, Julius Caesar.

One passage stayed with me, “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, the valiant taste of death but once”.

Shakespeare wrote those lines some three hundred years before Calvin Coolidge. Someone else wrote nearly the same thing a thousand years before Shakespeare. Another someone will repeat the same wisdom a thousand years after our time. Eternal verities are so called because they are truths that don’t vary through the ages. Neither does human nature. We know better even while we do worse. I’m as guilty of this as everyone else.

The strand of choice that links good sense and foolishness is parallel to the strand of choice that links good and evil. Together, the two strands of choice form an intertwined double-helix. When we choose the wrong strand we waste time and energy on quixotic tilts and idle fretting. When we choose wisely we get good things done and live contentedly.

We know what’s best. Why don’t we always choose what’s best?

The medieval church listed seven cardinal sins: Pride; Greed; Wrath; Envy; Lust; Gluttony; and Sloth. They also listed seven virtues: Humility; Generosity; Patience; Chastity; Gratitude; Temperance; and Diligence. Every Sin has a counterpart in Virtue. The counterpart of pride is humility, and so on.

Isn’t that easy? When faced with a dilemma, just choose virtue over sin.

Some modern folks reject the idea of sin. They don’t believe all that “biblical malarky” about sin. Maybe it’s the word and not the idea they reject. There is another way to think about sin. An offense against God is also a mistake, an error. Theologians contend on this point. Some say sin is deliberate defiance of God while mistake is only innocent error. That’s true, but the error of defying the will of God’s also creates all the mistakes of the here-and-now.

Secularists who reject God can still be usefully guided by the wisdom of the seven sins and seven virtues. These remain true whether you believe in God or not. Sinful mistakes are never innocent. They are willfully chosen. The results are universally predictable.

You can do-it-your-way, but you will certainly suffer the consequences.

That’s the awesome responsibility of Free Will.

You can waste your free will anguishing over imaginary problems down the road, or you can act now, on what you know needs to be done. You can indulge in pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth, or you do yourself a favor by choosing humility, generosity, patience, chastity, gratitude, temperance, and diligence?

The sensible choice is the same for the Godly and Secular, alike.

”But, but, but . . . ! “ You may imagine there is some “but” that will make self-indulgent choices just innocent fun – there isn’t. Milton’s Satan declares, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven”. A lot of people like to recite that line as a reason for selfish decisions. It’s a lie. The only one who reigns in Hell is Satan. All the rest suffer eternal torment.

The best strategy for dealing with the future is to do what’s right - right now. Choose wisely, and don’t worry about what might be coming down the road.

What to do, what to do?

Let go, and let God.

By K. L. Shipley

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