There’s a Google thing (program? webpage? tool?) called Google Books Ngram Viewer, which charts the frequency with which a word or phrase is found in Google Books’ existing body of texts. I don’t know what practical use it has (I’m sure it has one) besides keeping me entertained for hours (which is arguably practical), but in preparation for this piece, I turned to the Google Books Ngram Viewer and searched two words: “precedent” and “unprecedented”. The former has trended more or less consistently downwards since about 1813; the latter has trended variably up and down over the years, but in the last year (surprise, surprise) the use of “unprecedented” is swinging back up.

From the patterns of heavenly bodies and currents of the oceans to the smell of coffee and beginnings of a crush, all has precedent of one kind or another. In a similar vein, someone once said that every story has already been told. In a sense, sure, that’s true. Every story has its precedent: Lion King in Hamlet, Moulin Rouge! in the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, et cetera. “But it hasn’t been told by you,” a well-meaning creative writing instructor might encourage. This too bears the seal of truth.

These truths exist together: there is at once both precedent for everything as well as absolutely no precedent for exactly you. We have thousands of years of nothing but precedent for every single thing in this world—tomorrow’s dawn, the moon’s silver glow, the width between train tracks, the timeliness (or lack thereof) of public transportation—except for the awesome individual who is you. who is me. who is the neighbor with the creepy Santa Claus figurine in their doorway. We and our experiences are our own unprecedents.

I have been blessed to (finally) meet and know and befriend the three unprecedents with whom I am living for the rest of the year. Months of waiting, hours of praying, weeks in quarantine, and more airplanes than should be necessary brought this great precedented group of unprecedents together at long last.

(And now, for a brief divertissement to acknowledge 1) that the incessant and overbearing use of “unprecedented” in emails and other conversation regarding the ongoing pandemic, at the very least in part, inspired this piece in which the same words are used both incessantly and overbearingly; and 2) that I will never, when I’ve finished writing this, ever, God as my witness, use these words ever—ever—again. Now, back to the blog post;)

So, the COVID-19 pandemic might be unprecedented for us ourselves, and that is valid. The fear, anxiety, worry, pain, and panic all bundled into the baggage that the virus dragged off the train with it: OK. It is OK. But that’s the thing about precedent, too. It tells us things will be OK, thank goodness. Thank God.

That there is precedent for when I get upset with a brother and for when he subsequently forgives me; that there is precedent for meeting new people and for, then, making new friends; for blowing up a bowl of soup in the microwave and for getting the timing right the next time; precedent for plague, pestilence, and war and for health, abundance, and creation; for death and and then for conquering death.

All this to say there is precedent for hope. For growth and for change. But there is no second-act workout montage or succinct grand musical number in real life to speed things along. Time goes at its own constant pace, whether we like it or not, which can be either a blessing or a curse. Let us take the time we have been given—however long or short it is—to affect change, meaningful and lasting change; to grow, slowly but surely and without a second wasted; and let us hope without ceasing, come what may.

 

“And if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.”

—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters