A story about destiny
by Wm. Kelly Mordaunt

We have ultimate control over our destiny, but not immediate control, in a sense, and certainly not total control.

I'll give you an example of what I mean. Picture a man in a field, in the center point of many paved roads, all of which converge where he is standing and then go off to obscure destinations. In between these paved roads are unpaved ground types, rocks, grass, etc. Some of the roads are crooked or curved, others are straight, some are narrow, some are wide, some are freshly paved, others are mere dirt roads.

Now, picture a car next to you, fully loaded with gasoline and brand spanking new. It can be any make and model, but for each person it's different. However, there are a few catches to this vehicle: the brakes don't work, it only goes forward, and there's only so much gas (no refueling is allowed, in other words, there isn't a gas station anywhere.) Each vehicle, in addition to being of different makes and models, has a different sized gas tank, too.

Now, here's the meaning of the imagery: The man standing there is you, before you are born. When you enter that car, you finally get born and live according to the flesh. However, once you enter that car (the body), it immediately starts to go forward. You can steer it in any direction you want, but you can't slow it down and you can't stop it.

You can drive it in dirt or paved roads, on ground with little or great resistence. Along the different roads, there are plenty of signs, indicating the destinations of the various paths. You can choose any of them and if not satisfied with a particular path, you can drive off of it onto the ground and then drive onto another path. You can even turn around and go back to your starting point but you can't stop there, because that dang car keeps driving and will go past the converging point onto yet another road.

This is kind of how life is. You have some control, you can steer it in different directions, but you can't stop it and you can't speed it along. It goes at a constant speed and one day it will run out of gas and you'll step out of that car and look around to see where you are. Maybe you'll be no farther than a stone's throw from the convergence point, having driven in circles. If so, it's because you drove there. You alone are to blame. Maybe you'll be many miles away from that first spot, on some barren highway in the middle of nowhere, completely alone. Maybe you'll have followed other drivers down paths, not caring where they were leading, just that that is where the majority was driving to, so it must be a good destination. Or maybe you took a less used road. Maybe you came very close to a city and now you can walk into it, for it's now within walking distance of your car.

Ultimately, we choose our own destiny, and also moment by moment we choose it, but because things can happen to our car or the environment, we don't have total, absolute control. This freedom to choose our own path is what I call free agency. We can go where we'd like, do what we'd like, etc. However, other car drivers can do the same. They also have cars (life) and freedom of choice (free agency). Some of them are reckless drivers and think they are in a bumper car and will attempt to crash their car into yours, or in other ways slow down your progress. Maybe others will try to help you out when you get flats, etc. Each has agency and can hamper and hinder or help others who also have agency.

But, because of this agency, our own agency is often limited by the unwise and cruel use of agency by another. So, in addition to running out of gas (dying), and not being able to stop (halt the passage of time), we also have to deal with the unwise choices of others.

But there's more. This place we are in isn't always perfect for driving (living). Sometimes there are storms, snow, calamities, etc., which may cause us to make detours down roads we might otherwise not have travelled upon. Etc.

All of this is what I meant when I said, "But often, I find that really I have no power over my destiny. Often, I find myself 'placed' in situations that I'd rather not be in, that had I had the power I would have removed myself from them. I don't believe we are really, totally in control."

However, though we get detoured, we can still determine our ultimate destiny, or maybe I should better say, our ultimate direction. I don't believe this life is to "get anywhere." I believe this life is to find out in what direction we are facing, given all the road signs of life, upon our gas running out. It is also, once we find a good direction and destination, to get as close to that destiny as we possibly can, and to encourage others to go a good direction, especially if we've already been down a rocky road that led nowhere, and we see some new guy going the same way. But, it's ultimately up to us, we can drive in circles or drive to the moon, whatever we want, whatever we place the desires of our hearts upon, that's where we'll drive to.

Tying this in to CLAWS and the anti-work ethic: I think that one particularly well travelled road, a wide one with many people going down it, is probably a golden mountain in the distance, that glitters in the sun, scintillating like jewels, beckoning to many with promises of wealth, money, power and prestige. But, the wideness of this road is merely an illusion, for as one gets closer to that mountain, it becomes painfully obvious that the road narrows, so that only a few may possess the wealth. And the others who can't travel up that mountain? What becomes of them? They circle the mountain, hoping one day an opening will be there where they can quickly drive into the upward-going procession and get wealth for themselves. And thus people waste their lives for money.