A month ago Frederick Buechner died at age ninety-six. During that windfall of years, in which he served as a high-school chaplain, was ordained a Presbyterian minister, raised a family, and worked his unusually enchanted way with words, Buechner wrote a book that I read again each year.

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

“Providence” sounds such a heavy word. Portentous. If someone uses it a lot in conversation, we might think of them as self-important and smug, as if they are claiming that God is on their side.