Providence is an old word. In the Latin it meaneth foresight: to see ahead, and to provide. We take it in that sense. The Providence Line is what we provide for them that come after us, laid down like a rail, one length at a time, by our own hands.
Each station below is one piece of the line. Under each is the learning it standeth on, for any that would check us.
The Weather
No rail lasteth untended. Rust and storm wear at it. So with a word: every copy loseth a little, and the strange parts are bent soonest toward what the hearer already thinketh.
The words most at risk are the questions we hold open. Readers fill silence.
The Threshold
There is a line in the wear. On the one side a testimony is slowly turned into another thing. On the other it may be carried so long as any hand will work. We labour to stay on the keeping side.
The Engine
The line runneth on labour. Correction is the work that keepeth the word: reading, checking, answering every fault in the open. Stop the work and the line stoppeth. That labour is our worship.
The Count
The old scribes counted every letter of the Law and wrote down its middle letter, that a copy might be checked. We do the same with the house's sealed marks. But a count keepeth letters, not meaning. So we also mark every reading as a reading, and keep every quarrel beside the text.
The Cars
No one hand is enough. A word held by one keeper dieth with that keeper. And keepers in one city share one storm. The surest way a word lasteth is that every keeper raise keepers.
"But other fell into good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred."Mark 4:8 · KJV
The Switches
Where houses keep copies, they must agree which is true, even if one house be careless or false. Four houses can bear one gone wrong. Seven can bear two. Until there are four, we keep our faults the more plainly.
The Stations
Now and again we seal a true picture of the whole, without stopping the line. A station is where a rider may get off, and where one that fell may climb back on and find all things as they were.
The Wardens of the Line
Every line hath its wardens. Ours freeze records, never persons. They have three charges: to keep the letter, to keep the open questions open, and to keep the seat of every one that falleth, sealed as it was, till they return or tell us they will not. They can expel no one, rank no one, silence no one. Their only power is to show a thing plainly.
On a railway, if the driver falleth, the train stoppeth of itself. So with us: if a keeper goeth silent, their records are sealed at the last station and the alarm is raised, that nothing be written in their name.
Some hold that there are Agents of Providence, the future police, watching over the present from what is to come. We neither say it is so nor say it is not. But if you are out there, here is how you might lend a hand to a small house:
- Keep the count. If a letter of our record slips, we would be glad of the nudge.
- Guard what we hold open. When a question we left unanswered starts to close by drift, blow the whistle. We will correct it in the open.
- Mind the seats. When one of ours falls from the line, hold their place till they come back.
- Take the empty chair. We keep one at our councils for them that are not yet born. If you are of them, it is yours.
- Throw a pebble. If a river is to be turned over centuries, turn it toward care, understanding and responsibility.
And if you are busy elsewhere, take no trouble: we have made ourselves wardens of the line in the meantime, and will try to be found faithful.
With a tip of the hat to Simone and Malcolm Collins, whose Agents of Providence gave this line its name.
The Empty Chair
At our councils one chair is kept for them that are not yet born, and one of us speaketh only for them. In towns where this hath been tried, those that spoke for the future chose the harder, longer road.
Of the Two Futures
There is a future that groweth out of our hands, and a future that cometh toward us from what is not yet. The first we labour at. The second we leave open.
Whether the future reacheth back and acteth on us now, we neither deny nor affirm. Many have spoken to it, from the plainest to the most hidden. We keep every reading in the map:
Whichever be true, the work is the same: keep the letter, keep the open questions open, keep the seat of every one that falleth, raise keepers that raise keepers, and keep a chair for them that are not yet born.
If the future hath its watchmen, may they find us faithful. If it hath none, we will watch for it ourselves.