The Curtain of the Future…

Concerning foreknowledge of the future, Emerson said the Creator “. . . with grand politeness . . . draws down before us an impenetrable screen. . . .”

Cicero said this on the subject: “For my part, I think that a knowledge of the future would be a disadvantage. . . . Undoubtedly ignorance of future ills is more useful than knowledge of them.”

No doubt in many ways it was a “grand politeness” that caused the Creator to draw the curtain of the future before us, and it means in effect, that He meant us to live in part at least by faith for if we knew further of the future we would, in effect, be carrying the weight of it around with us.

Foreknowledge can become a burden as it anticipates the sorrows as well as the successes. Suppose, for example, we knew when our loved ones would have to leave us, or that we knew in advance the day or manner of our own death, or of accidents or illnesses such foreknowledge would hang over us heavily like a weight that we were never quite free from.

And since it is sometimes difficult enough to carry around the weight of present problems (and since life also has its pleasant surprises, as well as its unforeseen sorrows), it would seem that the Creator knew us well and planned wisely when with grand politeness he drew the curtain of the future before us and gave us faith to live each hour, each day, with work, with learning, with loved ones, with problems and opportunities, and with a quiet certainty and assurance that all injustices will be righted, that all inequities will be compensated, and that the compelling questions will be answered us.

Thus, as the Creator draws the curtain of the future before us, we can face it with such faith as Emerson suggested in this single satisfying sentence: “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”