Personal Predictions

The cal­en­dar year is com­ing to an end. I thought I would take a moment to review your life and pre­dict your future. This review and pre­dic­tion is based on some obser­va­tions made by the con­tem­po­rary writer and the­olo­gian Fred­er­ick Buech­ner. It is a review and prophecy that is easy to remem­ber and con­tains the three themes of all great lit­er­a­ture and drama: com­edy, tragedy, and fairy tale.

Dur­ing this last year, you have expe­ri­enced all three. The first two — com­edy and tragedy — are easy to iden­tify. Funny things hap­pen to us and some­times because of us. Life is filled with humor­ous para­doxes. It also has its tragedies — acci­dents, deaths, fail­ures, dis­ap­point­ments, and enough grief to make you want not to go on with it. It is the third cat­e­gory that is the most dif­fi­cult to appre­ci­ate. If you are read­ing this, you are still alive. You are still in motion. You still feel and embrace life. The com­pos­ite mir­a­cles that make up your life are still hap­pen­ing. The many things that you dreaded have not hap­pened and prob­a­bly never will. Those that do hap­pen you have the gifts to handle.

The com­ing year will be the same three themes as last year for every­one read­ing this. Com­edy, tragedy, and fairy tale are uni­ver­sal. They per­me­ate human expe­ri­ence. I have had all three this last year, and I know that the three will make numer­ous appear­ances in the year to come. What changes is the com­bi­na­tion. Life is a kalei­do­scope of these three themes. Give it another turn. Every­thing that hap­pens is famil­iar yet com­pletely novel at the same time.

When I came here a few years ago, I men­tioned these three themes in a brief address that I gave in the social hall, before an ice cream sup­per. The three themes have held true. Years later, they continue…and always will. Jesus was killed as a crim­i­nal — what an ironic joke! He was the only inno­cent per­son ever to live. His early death was tragic. How­ever, it had a fairy tale end­ing. He was res­ur­rected and went back to heaven.

What hap­pened to him is the par­a­digm that can hap­pen to all of the rest of us that are onto these life themes. I pre­dict that you and I will have com­edy, tragedy, and fairy tale in the year to come. So far, this pre­dic­tion has been one-hundred per­cent accu­rate. How these things hap­pen (their combination) will stem cre­atively from the Mys­tery we can­not control.