wheel of fortune
life’s wheel spinning
WHEEL OF FORTUNE: A SHORT DIALOGUE
by Julia Macintosh and Steve Thorp
JULIA
We’ve had good news this week. The spinning wheel came to rest and the dice all lined up nicely. Things are falling into place. Aspirations are being met and dreams fulfilled.
Only six months ago, it was an entirely different picture. Hardship and struggle filled the scene, with each day its own mountain to climb.
I’m being deliberately vague, because it’s not my story to tell; suffice to say that I’ve spent the past year walking alongside the vagaries of fortune. Now of course, it’s not down purely to luck. Life is complex and multi-faceted. Personal effort, help from others, flexibility and perseverance all played their part in this turnaround from difficulty and uncertainty to celebration and stability. But it must be acknowledged: it isn’t just down to us. This constellation of variables together depends upon a final, magical ingredient: faith.
I don’t mean faith in a higher power. Or do I? It’s really hard to shake the feeling that someone, somewhere has been looking out for us. Is it the wisdom of the ancestors, or the tender guidance of angels, or God Himself pulling the strings? I don’t know. All I can say is that I felt strongly throughout that we were being held, and my own participation stemmed from that starting point. We did our best, and we did well — but we weren’t and aren’t in control of the outcome.And because of this, I feel immensely grateful. There are no guarantees where fortune is concerned. We’ve been incredibly lucky.
I’m not trying to proselytise. Not wanting to convince, or convert to my way of thinking. I’m just trying to acknowledge that good fortune cannot be orchestrated, and that gratitude is in order.
Of course, in this shorter span of time the highs and lows show up like spikes and troughs on a graph. Step back for a wider perspective, and the graph becomes less marked; wider still, and the ups and downs flatten out into more or less of a line. Over the course of a lifetime, the highs and lows all have their say and leave their traces. These can be as vivid as tragedy, strife, notable achievement or winning ticket; or as mild as a missed bus or stubbed toe, good meal or smile from a stranger.
I wonder if we hold all these together, like individual flowers gathered into a bouquet — all thorned stems and beautiful blossoms — we might understand that it’s not really about ourselves — our demands and our preferences. And yet it’s entirely about ourselves — our attitudes and our perspectives. Good fortune and bad fortune together create the bouquet, which itself will dry out and wither in time.
So that’s my tuppence of reflection this week, in the wake of our good news which was finalised yesterday. I invite you to observe my joy as I popped open a bottle of fizz, and to join me in toasting the fates, and above all to share in my gratitude.
STEVE
When I read your reflection, Julia. I couldn’t resist responding. We’ve done a few dialogues in our time on this platform and elsewhere, and it seemed a good time to revive the tradition! What was that about? That ‘decision’ to reply? Like you say, the ‘fates’ aligned somehow, and your words evoked something in me.
First, I want to raise that glass and celebrate good news with you. And I want to acknowledge the feelings of elation and relief that come when something good happens in life. I’ve had a confirmation too, this week, of a change in my own life. I knew it was coming, but when I saw it there in front of me, something lifted.
These are often small things in perspective, aren’t they? We know there are troubles and forces that are out of our control in our world, but somehow ordinary people, our families and communities carry on inviting fate and preparing the soil for something wonderful to grow. It doesn’t always, but that doesn’t stop us carrying on and hoping. Tilling and sowing for the next season, and the next (metaphorically speaking for me that is — I’m a poor gardener!).
I’ve been reading Nick Cave’s book, Faith, Hope and Carnage, a collection of conversations with journalist Seán O’Hagan. It’s rich and beautiful, and in their dialogues they also explore matters of chance and faith. Nick Cave has been leaning towards ‘God’ recently (as those who read his Red Hand Files will know), but it’s a strange and knowing kind of faith that he moves in and out and through; sometimes contradicting himself; sometimes going deep into a ‘religious’ persona and space. Sometimes, it seem, letting go entirely.
The context for much of this has been loss — particularly the death of his son, Arthur in 2015. Such a life event might be the biggest spike on the graph we experience, but there are others too, and I guess the responses we have to these circumstances have something to do with the thing we call fate, or faith, or chance, or God.
Nick Cave wraps all this up in uncertainty, as most wise people do. Even though he veers towards a more religious perspective, he also acknowledges that doubt is at the heart of it. We experience ‘chance’ and ‘luck’ or ‘God’s will’, but we can never be really sure where it comes from…
I lean towards to secular explanations, as you know, but I also have to accept that doubt belongs there too. I have this quote of his bookmarked — in it he is writing about people’s response to grief: “People constricting around an absence, growing hard and mad and furious at the world, and never recovering. There is nothing to lead them from the abyss”. This could and sometimes does move people away from ‘God’. However, he goes on,“Look at our glorious secular world as it stands today. To me, secularism can also feel like a kind of hardening around an absence”.
It seems to me that to suffer, and then to find it in ourselves to move on and recognise and embrace ‘fate’ or ‘God’ or ‘hope’ or whatever, is the very opposite of that hardening, and the every essence of life’s wheel spinning.
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