We could debate whether there a place for such a concept as destiny in history. I'm not going to go there tonight, especially after a long day at work but I do want to share with you a play I read as a young student called "Murder in the Cathedral" by T.S. Eliot. Eliot wrote it in 1935 and it centres around the martyrdom of the Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.
The play had a profound impact on me as it contained so many challenging and thought-provoking ideas. There is never a week that goes without me revisiting its yellowed pages of my student copy and reading some of the most poignant verses I have ever encountered. Many just stick in my mind such is their impact. One line comes to mind tonight and that is:
"Destiny waits in the hands of God, shaping the still unshapen."
I'm always awe-struck by the simplicity and yet the profundity of this line. Whether you are religious or not is irrelevant, it raises issues of whether the future is pre-destined or not and therefore whether we can change anything in our lives, however hard we try to. It may be argued that even our trying to change our lives and our "destiny" is predestined!
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