An incredible quote from James Gould Cozzens’ novel By Love Possessed (1957) with a strong Luke 12 feel:
“In a careful review of worries of their lives, most men’s finding must be, neither that there was nothing to worry about, nor that worry couldn’t be on occasion, a valuable, profitable exercise, but that all or nearly all those fervid past anxieties of doubt or anticipation had been to no purpose. You so seldom worried about the right things. Over evil that never happened the heart sank most often and the spirit sickened. Evils actually come to pass, evils that a timely worry (if conceivable) could have prevented or eased, befell you as a rule without warning, not bargained for, as a sudden dirty surprise.” (p. 498)
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If the evils can't get fit into our programmatic way of dealing via worrying, may they finally come as gifts?
If gifts, then evils?