Doris, William, Corrie and the Unpredictable.

As a child, listening to ‘Uncle Mac’ on the radio playing ‘Children’s Choice’, I often heard Doris Day singing:

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que sera, sera

‘Qué será, será’ is the Spanish for ‘what will be, will be’. Much in life is beyond our control. This happy song suggests that not seeing our future is OK. It’s part of life, so get on with it!

‘Que sera sera’ – Accept the unpredictable!

William Shakespeare… Hamlet is speaking with Horatio just before Hamlet’s death:

…there’s a special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be
not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come:
the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves,
what is’t to leave betimes?

It will happen now… in the future? ‘When’ can’t be predicted. ‘The readiness is all’ – Be ready for the unpredictable!

‘Lectio 365’ tells me that today, April 15^th, is the day holocaust survivor, Corrie Ten Boom was born, and died. Part of the Dutch resistance network, it’s estimated that she saved eight hundred lives. In 1944 she was arrested and suffered in Ravensbrück concentration camp…

After the war, preaching in a church Munich, she met one of her former guards:  

‘How grateful I am for your message, Fräulein,’ he said. ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’ His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often… the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side… I breathed a silent prayer. ‘Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give your forgiveness.’ As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder and through my hand, a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprung a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me…’

Accept… be ready… respond to, embrace, the unpredictable… with love and forgiveness.