Quotable Quotes

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."

So says Hamlet to Horatio in Act 5, Scene 2 - and so said my Boss to me over lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant on Spadina Avenue about eight days ago.

I had just been telling her about a previous work experience where I'd made a somewhat impulsive but, I believe, correct decision about leaving an organization because of the administration's treatment of their employees (I had just seen my supervisor at the time dismissed without notice or cause, and I'd seen others treated this way too). It was the only time I'd ever left a job without giving two weeks' notice and without having something else lined up. I figured if they could dismiss such a nice lady as my previous supervisor without notice or cause, then I could also resign without notice. It was my own small way of protesting the ways things were run.

Providentially, a friend of mine who did freelancing work for publishing companies soon put me in touch with one of her employers who was looking for someone to do permissions work. Thanks to my friend's thoughtfulness, I had work all lined up for me upon my return to Toronto. It was an ideal situation because, during that first year back in Canada, I was able to spend a lot of time with my family and have some income while working from home.

In all truth, I probably would have been heading home in the next six months any way because of my father's passing and my consequent desire to be available to my Mom and Nana. My circumstances prompted me to come home sooner, which was better for all of us. Eventually, I found full-time work at my alma mater where I'm currently blessed with another excellent Boss (thank you, God!).

I do believe Divine Providence saw the good intentions in my actions (however impulsive and heedless of the future they may have been) and blessed me through my freelancing friend's thoughtfulness, and also through the great generosity of other kind and loving friends.

Indeed, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."

Or, as St. Paul puts it in Romans 8:28, "All things work together for good, for those who love the Lord."