Fortune Rota Volvitur

A couple of weeks ago I visited Professor Fireface in her beautiful cottage, home not just to her but two King Charles spaniels, three cats, and a pair of rabbits; I didn’t meet the horse, he lives elsewhere. She showed me her OBE and the Golden Yeti given to her as Cryptozoologist of the Year a while ago for her role in analysing some alleged Yeti hair (spoilers: they turned out not to be). The same day she heard about the award from the Palace (the OBE, not the Yeti, they don’t deal with that), she had another letter telling her the university she’d worked at for more than twenty years was making her post redundant. She found another job fairly quickly, but it’s not what she wants, especially as it’s based a hundred miles away via a particularly awkward and trying route whether you do it by car or train. They don’t expect her in very often, but the previous time she’d made the journey it took a round trip of seven hours, cost nearly £200 in travel, accommodation, and animal-sitting charges, and two of the three meetings she was supposed to attend moved online anyway. She thinks it isn’t sustainable in the long run and is applying for another job at a university closer to home.

Of course I want her to get it. It would cost her dearly to move away from where she is. I tell the Lord this, to the extent that I’m sure he’s a bit fed up with being informed about the situation. Surely none of the other three candidates can need that position as much as my friend does? They will just be making a career choice, rather than avoiding a broken heart and a worn-out resolve. But, so far as prayer goes, this is uncomfortably a zero-sum game: if Professor Fireface gets appointed, three others won’t be. It’s that even more directly than the ‘Dear God, please find me a parking space’ situation (there might be more than one, and cars move in and out of a car park all the time), or praying for someone who needs a kidney transplant, which my friend the Heresiarch used to argue was immoral – essentially seeking the death of someone else, even if you don’t know who they are and aren’t positively willing the circumstances which would lead to an organ coming available. Here, there is only one job, and only one way of getting my friend into it.

And what would I like the Lord to do, exactly? Make sure that she keeps her head and has done the right prep (she’s been advised to talk about ‘neo-Lamarckian genomics’ when an opportunity comes up)? Clear the traffic so she’s on time? Less charitably, obstruct the efforts of the other candidates in some way? Surely not that.

I can’t remember where I read that most prayer was just a matter of saying, ‘Lord, please clean up the mess’. In the end, as I always advise people, I’m just telling him what I feel strongly about in the knowledge that he knows what’s going on better than I do, and will act, and has already acted long in the past, for the final good of his creation. That reads a bit limp, if I’m honest, but it’s the best I can do.