Co-in-ci-dence

noun

a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection

Do you believe in accidents and happenstance?  Are you in the fluke camp or on the side of fate?

Most of my life I saw coincidence everywhere and all the time.  The funny thing is that the more you notice serendipitous moments, the more you have to at least entertain the idea that everything happens for a reason and not by mere chance.  Spirit, muscle, mind...we're made up of energy. Energy has pull and life force.  

A few months ago an old friend contacted me via social media on a site I rarely frequent, but felt compelled to visit on the day she reached out to me.  The very day.  It had been over a decade since I'd seen her and we last talked maybe six years ago.  We messaged back and forth a few times and talked about having coffee to heal old wounds.  A couple days later, I found myself in a store I have shopped only a handful of times.  It was on a whim that I ended up there, and it happened to be her first day on her new job there.  We walked right into each other.  Collided.  Random?  I think not.

Father Tim began the homily at my mom's funeral by singing An Irish Lullaby.  It was the song playing when Teddy was born, and my mom sang it to him countless times when he was a colicky newborn.  She swore it was the only thing that calmed him.  I let her believe that despite the fact that I thought it was the way she walked and bounced him, or maybe just the sound of her voice.  As Father Tim sang Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral, I felt peace wash over me for the first time in the week since her death.  Later I asked him how he knew to sing the song.  His answer: I felt compelled by the Holy Spirit.  Random?  No way.

The sermon on Ash Wednesday invited us to be eagles and not dodo birds.  Dodo birds are extinct.  The other day I spent all morning wallowing in the past.  I stood at the kitchen window waiting for a cup of coffee and an eagle flew first around my yard and then straight at me over the house.  I've seen an eagle maybe twice in the ten years I've lived here.  Random?  No possible chance.

Coincidence is a safe explanation for the uncanny experiences we have every day.  Experiences that may make us uncomfortable and accountable.  If that then so if the universe is talking, it is in our best interests to try and figure out what it's saying.