An Odd Providence

This is something of a post about my posts. I write the vast majority of them many days in advance. Occasionally, I will be struck by an idea that I think important so I will quickly write it out and post it as soon as I can, but that is extremely rare. With the posts that I write beforehand, I schedule them to come up once a day and this is usually days out on the calendar.

That said, let me point out how many times I have written a post (say, on Monday), which I plan on having published later (say, on Saturday) and then something happens to impact that. In between those events (say, on Wednesday) someone contacts me to ask advice about something, and the subject they are asking about is the exact same thing as the post I already wrote, but have not yet published online (insert sound of forehead slap here).

What is a Priest to do? He does not want to make it appear that he is writing about the person who spoke to him privately, but he does not want to keep others from being able to read the post and gain insight from it. If I were to tell every person that asked a question like that, "oh, by the way, I already wrote a post about that very subject which will be published in a few days" it would begin to sound like I am not being honest (as though I were making up an excuse to defend myself writing about the parishioner who asked the question).

Of course, this should not surprise any of us who believe in an all knowing and all powerful God. This is exactly how He works: connecting things in our lives. Whether He does this to help me think about what I am writing, or whether He does it to give extra input to the questioner, I am not sure. Either way, this many coincidences are not actually coincidences; they are intentionals.

Therefore, if you read a post that speaks directly about something you just asked me about (because I forgot to take it down after you asked the question) please do not think that I wrote directly about you. Pastoral ethics says that you leave private matters to be private matters. I do not air anyone's dirty laundry. When I do mention "someone I spoke to" in a post, I ensure that it is described in such a way that often the person himself does not know I am writing about him, and if I do not hide it, it is because the subject matter is not private (or in any way embarrassing), and I never give names.

God is at work in your life, and He is at work in my life; He works in all our lives so we should not be surprised when we see things connect like pieces of a puzzle. This is actually one of the evidences of the presence of God in our lives. We should be able to take this with joy and give Him thanks that He is involved in our lives like this.