20-20 Hindsight
I believe in twenty-twenty hindsight. It seems to work so much better than prediction. It’s so comforting to know that you’re right because whatever you claim to be true has already happened. No more “weatherman” mistakes.
Of course, there’s always the problem with what things mean. Twenty-twenty hindsight is great for recalling what happened, but it won’t tell you a thing about what the recollection means. That’s the biblical perspective. Something occurs. After it’s over you know what it was. No sense trying to predict what will occur because it’s just too easy to get it wrong. But once the event has happened, well, then knowing that it happened is pretty straightforward. That, unfortunately, still doesn’t tell you what the event means. You see, in order to know what it means, you have to know the larger context. Sometimes you might even have to know all the context, and since human beings just can’t know everything, you can never really be sure what any particular event might mean. Only God knows, and most of the time He’s not saying. As the Teacher penned:
“Indeed, man cannot guess the events that occur under the sun. For man tries strenuously, but fails to guess them; and even if a sage should think to discover them he would not be able to guess them.”[1]
Heschel captures this dilemma in his writings about history.
“And yet, the word of God never comes to an end. For this reason, prophetic predictions are seldom final. No word is God’s final word. Judgment, far from being absolute, is conditional. A change in man’s conduct brings about a change in God’s judgment. No word is God’s final word.”[2]
“No word is God’s final word.” That’s worth remembering. It certainly must imply that no word of ours can be the final word either. As soon as you think you know what’s going on, you’re probably wrong. God might just change it all with another word. History is much less about understanding than it is about just recounting, and even recounting is subject to the selective paradigm that governs what we think is happening. In the end, the only real word is “trust.” You just never know the whole story. You have to trust that He does, even if He’s not telling you.
I’m writing this on January 1st , 2020. It seems appropriate to talk about twenty-twenty hindsight on the first day of the year 2020 (at least according to the Gregorian calendar, which, by the way, was invented by Pope Gregory in 1582). Now that you think about the fact that this day is an invention of the Church, doesn’t that make you wonder why the Church picked this day as the beginning of the annual cycle (the pagan go-around-again cycle)? Oh, sorry, that was a rabbit trail.
So, here’s my 20-20 hindsight thoughts for this day.
In September I left the United States and moved to Italy. Because I anticipated that the Italian immigration authority would require medical insurance in order for me to prove I had no need of the national health system in Italy, I purchased a one-year medical insurance traveler’s plan. I never thought I would need it. I don’t like to spend money of “unnecessary” things, so, if it weren’t for the immigration requirement, I would not have purchased the plan. After all, I’ve traveled millions of miles (literally) without medical coverage. You know what happened next, right? On October 2, I ruptured my Achilles’ tendon. That’s the one that you need in order to walk. It’s the largest and most important tendon in the body. That resulted in surgery, complications, hospitalization, lots of medication and 87 days of immobility. Now I look forward to 60 to 90 days of rehabilitation, but, I am very glad to say, I started walking again on Christmas day. Slowly. I won’t be running anywhere for a long time.
My point this this. Do you suppose that this was a miracle in advance? The cost of all this would have been devastating to us, and yet, because of some odd circumstances, the insurance company will pay the whole bill. It’s almost as if God prompted me to purchase the plan without me knowing that I would actually need it. And the strangest part of this is that the immigration board has still rejected our application for residence, so I didn’t need the medical plan for that purpose at all. A miracle in advance. What do you suppose 20-20 hindsight has to say about all this? What does it mean?
The year 2019 also brought another hard-to-understand event in my life. Over the course of the years I have written Today’s Word, I’ve met a very large number of people. Two men in particular have left an indelible mark on me, not because of their lives but because of their deaths. The first was a man I “accidently” met on a flight. He and his wife became great friends. He contracted cancer and during his last year his insight about living grew more and more focused. The closer he drew to the end, the sharper his vision became. I was honored to spend a few days with him before he died and our conversations changed me in ways that I still can’t fully explain. All I know at this moment is that “the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body,” but sharing life always brings good. He encouraged me to recognize that I couldn’t think my way out of the box. I had to feel what was happening and explore that connection with others. I am forever grateful for his counsel. It is with me nearly every day.
The second man was one of my best financial supporters. We connected academically and experientially. Our lives seemed to follow the same sort of traumatic events, even though we lived in very different worlds. The last time I saw him, there was a kind of unspoken comradery and mutual admiration. And then I heard the incomprehensible news that he had taken his own life. I still can’t fathom it. He seemed so much like me. I saw myself struggling in the same way. But somehow I missed what was really happening. I didn’t see deeply enough. And to this day, I feel the pain of regret. Twenty-twenty doesn’t help at all. I never knew the meaning of what he was saying in those last days.
One man’s experience of death left me with great hope. The other man’s left me with unspeakable sadness. Today I am still in the middle, pulled both ways, not knowing what it all means.
2020 is a year for twenty-twenty hindsight. What we could have done but didn’t. What might have happened. What we never thought would happen but did. And how we make sense of it all—until we encounter another one of God’s words—and start again.
[1] Translation Ecclesiastes 8:17 JPS Commentary
[2] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol 1, p. 194.
