There, But for the Luck of the Draw . . . and Photons
January 30, 2020

    If you need a secular equivalent for "There, but for the grace of God, go I," try the title of this meditation.  It retains, and perhaps sharpens, the moral essence of the saying.

    The origins of the more theological version of the sentiment are unclear.  It has been attributed to a preacher of the English Reformation movement, John Bradford, who was said to have made the comment upon seeing others led to the gallows for execution.  Ultimately, Bradford was himself imprisoned for his Reformationist views (which constituted crimes against the English Crown) and was burned at the stake in 1555, during the reign of Mary Tudor.

    Grace of God, indeed.

   Historians lack the evidence to definitively confirm the attribution of the original phrase to the "Martyr Bradford" (as one later minister referred to him, over 250 years after his death).  And many people today are similarly skeptical that any given instance of avoiding tragedy constitutes evidence of the hand of God intervening in human affairs.

    But that is not the heart of the matter, from my perspective.  The heart of the matter is two-fold: first is the recognition that our circumstances – good or bad – are not entirely (or even mostly) of our own making, certainly not when we start out, in any case.  As I used to tell my Attucks kids, you didn‛t choose the cards you were dealt.  The second part is that you have to make the best use you can of what you have received – trade in a few of the bad cards, if you can, and use your wits with the ones you can't.  You possess some degree of power in how you play your hand.

   And know this: whatever power you wield here on earth traces back, in a very literal, material sense, to the sun.  So if you're playing your hand well, there is little room to brag, for you, O Man, did not make the sun.  And if you need to play your hand better, you have a ceaseless supply of real energy – photons! – by which to do so.  So rise up and walk!