A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1003

Had a client get in an auto accident, moderate injuries but nothing too serious. Went to the hospital for X-rays and a serious heart condition was revealed and treated before any adverse consequences came of it.
-Nicholas Clekis, Charleston, South Carolina (clekislaw clekis.com)

My felix culpa was a head-on collision in 1975, when I was 20, which nearly took my life (not my fault, btw). I learned early not to take any moment of my life for granted, to keep my body in good working order, and if I really want to do something, to just go ahead and do it, because I never know when the chance might be suddenly taken away from me. I celebrate that day as a second birthday, which, in a way, it was.
-Vicki Righettini, San Diego, California (vickir javalinux.net)

When the web boom went bust in 2002, I lost my staff editing position. Turned out I could double my salary as a freelancer. That in turn helped me retire sooner.
-Howard Baldwin, Lake Oswego, Oregon (baldwin.howard gmail.com)

I was driving my Volkswagen Bug to work one day in 1976 when, going around a blind curve, a Buick hit me head on. My sternum was broken, making it difficult for me to breathe, and I was in the hospital for nine days until my lungs were working right again. This was very painful, and I was regularly dosed with Demerol. It worked. I’d been trying to stop smoking for more than two years and had not succeeded. In the hospital, when breathing was a challenge, smoking never entered my mind. By the time I was done with the Demerol, I’d gone through nicotine withdrawal without noticing it.
I’ve never smoked again. This was 45 years ago and now I’m 79 and in very good health. The wreck might have killed me if the Buick had been going 10 mph faster. Instead, judging from the number of contemporaries who have died from smoking-related diseases, it likely added at least a decade to my life.
-Tom Stites, Newburyport, Massachusetts (tom tomstites.com)

This happened to a friend of mine, not to me. But it’s a felix culpa I will never forget. In 1977, my friend and her husband had planned a trip to Europe. The day before leaving, they went for their usual walk on the rocky beach near their Los Angeles home. Her husband fell and broke his leg, and they had to cancel their trip. The flight they would have been on was the Pan Am plane destroyed in the runway collision at Tenerife; the deadliest accident in aviation history.
-Dorothy A. Daybell, Wilmington, North Carolina (ddaybell usc.edu)

I was an airman subsequently commissioned an Air Force second lieutenant and scheduled to be sent to Texas on 3 January. Because of the Christmas holidays, I could not be processed in time to make the trip, so my activation was deferred to February. I was upset with the delay; one of my buddies took me with him to a USO. That evening I met the woman who would be my wife! We have had sixty-eight wonderful years together, four children, eleven grandchildren, and are expecting our twelfth great-grandchild in January!
-Joel Berg, PhD, Henderson, Nevada (jbergx gmail.com)

At the end of my second year of BSc at university I was involved in a motor vehicle accident which disabled me and prevented me from taking up vacation employment which helped me finance my studies. As a result I opted to continue part-time and find employment on campus so I had some income but could continue studying. A position as a part-time technical assistant came up and I enjoyed the work so much and became so interested that I changed my course from Nutrition & Dietetics to Microbiology. To this day and now retired I have never regretted this change and have enjoyed a most interesting and fulfilling career as a hospital microbiologist.
-Cynthia O’Keefe, Geelong, Australia (cybeireans2 optusnet.com.au)

In my freshman English grammar course at my university, I made a C. I switched to Greek in the classics department. And Greek pretty much solved my problem with legalistic English. I learned that clergymen, lawyers, and the like knew you couldn’t split an infinitive in Greek or Latin and somehow that ruling got carried over into English grammar and our educational system.
The serendipity was that I fell in love with Greek and majored in it. My wife smilingly calls me her Greek freak. That serendipity also led me into becoming an author, an editor, a manager over editors, a publisher, and corporate officer. And years later when “happy downsizing” occurred, that freed me to write at this point more than a million published words. So if ever anyone has given thanks for a C in English, it might just be me. :)
-Johnnie C Godwin, Gallatin, Tennessee (johnniegodwin aol.com)

Reminds me of a story, apparently from the Taoist Zen Buddhist tradition, about a farmer who has successive experiences for which his neighbors either congratulate him or express their sorrow. In each case he responds, “We’ll see.” Two examples that have stuck with me are that the farmer’s son breaks his leg and can’t work, so the neighbors express their sympathy. He says, “We’ll see.” Then soldiers come to conscript the young men of the village into the military and they pass over the son with the broken leg. The farmer’s response to the neighbor’s congratulations is still “We’ll see.”
-Gary P. Brown, Hammondsport, New York (revnor aol.com)

I totalled an old car in what I called my “happy crash”. The car was 18 years old, so it was about time to replace it. Nobody was hurt. The insurance paid more than I thought it was worth, and I got a replacement that was in better condition.
-Norm Samuelson, Prescott, Arizona (norm normsamuelson.com)

I was a tourist at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich when the disastrous attack on the Israeli athletes occurred. The next day, amid the sadness and uncertain effect on the Games, I asked a German woman to help me understand it. She is now my wife.
-Jack Shoulders, Sarver, Pennsylvania (slojak aol.com)

On May 5, 2019, on a motorcycle excursion with friends I had an accident that resulted in my month-long hospitalization, sustaining injuries that subsequently prevented me from starting a food business. When I felt ready and fit enough to pursue that project, the pandemic hit, further postponing it. Had I not had the accident and sustained the injuries, I would have ended up in a disastrous financial predicament as experienced by many restaurant owners. Although that unfortunate experience was quite tolling and hard on me, I consider it a felix culpa, I’d suppose. Don’t you think?
-Mehrdad Dalamie, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (mjdalamie gmail.com)

In all hell it raised, this pandemic was felix culpa in one regard: in the past I’d already asked to work remotely, to no avail. After a few months of forced remote work however, our company decided that everybody should work remotely... permanently! ~:D
-tao, Setúbal, Portugal (kreelah gmail.com)

Before traffic and crowds became too excessive, I used to visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park at least once a year. One of the few disturbing aspects of a Smokies trip was the frequency of seeing the Confederate flag from Tennessee and North Carolina roads near the park. However, on the first trip to the Smokies after the horrific 9/11 attacks, the only flag seen flying in the area was the Stars and Stripes. For this Air Force veteran, it was a welcome example of how the terrorist attacks were felix culpae for a resolute national unity.
-Denny Beck, Grand Rapids, Michigan (smokiescat gmail.com)

I watched on Netflix this weekend a documentary about Bob Ross, Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed. Bob Ross was the TV personality who did 30-minute paintings on PBS TV for over 11 years. His quotation is: “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”
-Sandra Speizer, Speizer, New Jersey (sandra.speizer pseg.com)

In Mahabharata, the great Indian epic, when Arjuna visited Lord Indra, his father, Urvasi makes sexual advances to Arjuna, but Arjuna does not agree to it, telling she is like mother. Urvasi says, in their heavenly world, no such things. Still Arjuna did not agree and Urvasi cursed him to be bisexual for some time. This helps him during ajnaathavasam (exile in incognito). Hence the saying “Urvasi sapam upakaram” (Blessing in disguise or felix culpa).
-Job Pottas, Muvattupuzha, India (jobpottas gmail.com)

Felix culpa is the central idea of Paradise Lost, written by John Milton explicitly to be the epic poem of Christianity and England. Sin, even while regrettable, leads to something good. After Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden, they are promised a “paradise within, happier far”: in other words, Puritan self-discipline, as exemplified in the execution of Charles I and the installation of a Puritan government. Felix culpa has sometimes become a kind of “the more you spend, the more you save” paradox: God’s grace can forgive sin. So, good Christians, prove you are on God’s side by sinning abundantly, in order to cause more forgiveness. In Paradise Lost John Milton’s Adam even wonders if he should rejoice that he sinned, instead of repenting!
-Mark Trevor Smith, Seattle, Washington (mts231f gmail.com)

Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry, claimed a felix culpa in that her having been brought to America as a slave enabled her to be brought by her captors to Christ. Incredible logic by today’s standards -- I still find it hard to fathom how people who were forced into any religion would maintain fealty to that religion upon being given liberty.
-Paul Smethers, Nashville, Tennessee (paul.smethers nashville.gov)

I don’t recall ever hearing this expression before, but I am well aware of the concept. My grandmother always called a felix culpa “a blessing in disguise”. Can’t tell you how often this comes to pass, but it is often.
-George Whiting, Cambridge, Massachusetts (gfwhiting comcast.net)

This makes me think of the playwright Jean Kerr quoting her mother: “Sometimes I wish I would get a blessing that is not in disguise.”
-Laura Burns, Galveston, Texas (laurab12 sbcglobal.net)

Felix culpa: the cat ate my homework.
-Joel Mabus, Portage, Michigan (joel.mabus pobox.com)