Posted on 22 April 2020, 9:46

Predestination… taken in its widest meaning, is every Divine decree by which God, owing to His infallible prescience of the future, has appointed and ordained from eternity all events occurring in time, especially those which directly proceed from, or at least are influenced by, man’s free will. It includes all historical facts, as for instance the appearance of Napoleon or the foundation of the United States, and particularly the turning-points in the history of supernatural salvation, as the mission of Moses and the Prophets, or the election of Mary to the Divine Motherhood. Taken in this general sense, predestination clearly coincides with Divine Providence and with the government of the world”.

The Greeks and the Romans believed that the Fates, also called the Moirai or the Parcae, determined when life begins, when it ends, and what happens in between. They were composed of three women: Clotho appeared as a maiden and spun the thread of life. Her name meant The Spinner. Lachesis appeared as a matron and measured the thread of life. She is the Caster of lots.

Atropos cut the thread of life, and appeared as a crone. Her name meant, Unbending. Though the smallest of the three, she is the most terrible.

Scandinavians also had three goddesses of Destiny, who likewise wove the threads of life, measured them, and cut them when a person died. They were called the Norns, who likewise ruled the destiny of the gods and humankind. Urðr (Wyrd), Verðandi and Skuld come out from a hall standing at the Well of Urðr (well of fate) and they draw water from the well and take sand that lies around it, which they pour over Yggdrasill (the tree of life) so that its branches will not rot.

The three Weird Sisters of Macbeth are Saxon Equivalents.

1. It was early in 1938, and this New Zealand vicarage family were coming home, after spending time with my grandparents in picturesque Clovelly in Devon, England, where my grandfather was rector. My father had been priest-in-charge of St Nicholas, Kings Lynne in Norfolk. I had gone to what they called a Dame’s school in a room in the head mistress’ house. We had stayed with my maternal grandmother’s sister, who was married to a stockbroker in Cobham, Surrey.  We visited St Paul’s cathedral, the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s, the foggy cold of London, and the underground trains. We visited an engineer uncle in Queen Anne’s Gate. Such rich experiences for the nine-year-old who had been at a small country school to the north of Christchurch New Zealand.

Now were embarked on the huge RMS Orion with over 700 passengers on our six-week trip home. We visited Toulon, Naples, Pompeii and Port Said, and travelled through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea.  Then it happened:

Mr. Ormorod gave me sixpence!
I never forgot.

I am not quite sure now why it why was so unforgettable.  During the long dreary days of seeing nothing but the horizon, a kindly adult taking in us children, would have been most welcome. Ormorod is an unusual name. It’s a Lancashire name, and is Norse in origin, Orme meaning Serpent, and Rod means Clearing of Road

2. I was a child then, I am middle aged now

The Second World War was to follow, and the Cold War. I had to wait until 1986, 48 years for the sequel.

I was once more in Surrey, this time with my wife. Through Imder, a mutual tourist hospitality arrangement, then current, a lady in Farnham had agreed to host us for a day and a night.

We made our way to her home and knocked on her door. She opened, and when she found who we were she was angry. “You’ve have come on the wrong day, and it is most inconvenient. I’ll have to put you up, but go away for along walk so I can prepare your room. Why don’t you go for long walk, and visit Jonathan Swift’s former home, Manor Park?” Or words to that effect.

When we returned, she was less upset and showed us round her centuries old house, which seemed full of presences. She was a gifted artist and some of works were on the walls. Appropriately, it was there she worked in the basement writing children’s books using automatic writing guided by a spirit.

But, we had indeed come on the wrong day, for she was shortly to quit the house, and that very night she was having a kind of goodbye party for her friends and she was good enough to include us. The guests began to arrive, and for our benefit they introduced themselves.

“My name is Ormorod”, said one.

“I knew a man called Ormorod,” I said excitedly,  “it was more than forty years ago when I was a child. We were in a ship passing through the Red Sea, he was a nice old man and he gave me sixpence.”

“That would have been my grandfather,” he said, “He sometimes travelled through the Red Sea, and he certainly liked children.”

3. On the other side of the world

We are back in New Zealand, in my country parish of Hororata, in North Canterbury. I am back visiting parishioners scattered over hundreds of square kilometres. I decide to call on Rosalie Inch, about ten kilometres from home. She was an artist, and when I called, to my amazement she was painting a picture from a photograph of Ormorod House.

“Why ever are you painting that picture,” I asked.

“I am painting it on commission from a man in Greendale.”

“Might I know his name?” Rosalie tells me.

I phone this man, and say, “I know a man called Ormorod. I was nine years old, and I met him on a ship passing through the Red Sea. He gave me sixpence.”

“That would have been my grandfather,” he said, he often passed that way, and he liked children.”

4. The drunken photographer Ormonroyd.

(See my book, Into the Wider Dream, p. 173)
“ A couple of days later, we were watching on TV a comedy by J.B Priestly. “When we are married”, about three Yorkshire couples engaged in a fierce battle of the sexes, when it appeared that they had not been legally married. They had come together to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their marriages. Mr. Orenroyd was there to photograph them for newspaper, but he didn’t have chance. An officious young man comes in and seems to prove that they were not le legally married. Vicious quarrels break out, but finally they are informed that their marriages were legal after all. Amity is restored. Mr. Ormenroyd staggers from his seat, and takes their photo. Immediately after the picture is taken, we find the actors assembled singing harmoniously as a choir.

Others may not agree, but I see this as synchronous with the three previous episodes.

Do the first three episodes constitute true synchronicity? Are they “married to each other?

Are the three couples married to each other? They are indeed, and a tipsy Mr. Ormonroyd celebrates this with his photograph.

I see it as obvious that episodes 1-3 are synchronous, “married”, just the three couples in the play by J B Priestly had obviously been married all the time

Just as we can have a “factoid” so we have an Ormenroyd. (That surname is real and a variant of Ormerod)

***
Such a story seems to demand a learned “scientific” explanation. But none will be possible. Because nothing happened according to the normal laws of cause and effect.

God is Spirit and “John 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”  “God moves in mysterious was, his wonders to perform.”

More about this at another time, but it is to be remarked that there seems to be no religion, no Christian denomination that does NOT have the idea of Predestination as part their official teaching.  It must be true that in all peoples at all time people have strange synchronicities that seem to demand the action of a higher power.

Use of mantic devices, such as the I Ching, astrology attest to such a belief.

“The Spirit bloweth where listeth”. The language of Spirit is in all creativity, poetry, music and all deep human relationships, within the God who is in all and through all.

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr and Into the Wider Dream by Michael Cocks are published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.

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