first heard in a TV show

Have you ever experienced that serendipitous synchronicity that happens when you finally identify one idea or insight that has been trying to break through to you--and then you suddenly see it/hear it/recognize it everywhere you go?

That’s how I feel about this certain line that jumped out at me when I heard a song played as background during my favorite TV show (Parenthood).  The song, “Lady Adelaide,” seems to describe what I picture to be a young woman and her struggle with intimacy and relationship (my interpretation). The line that stood out to me declares:

“she likes the ideas of things

more than what they are bound to bring”

“The idea of things” all of a sudden has become a recurring theme for me... in a discussion with my daughter, in my pastor’s weekday homily, and today, in a quote by Mother Teresa:

Jesus wants me to tell you again… how much love he has for each one of you—beyond all you can imagine. I worry some of you still have not really met Jesus—one to one—you and Jesus alone. We may spend time in chapel—but have you seen with the eyes of your soul how he looks at you with love? Do you really know the living Jesus—not from books but from being with him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words he speaks to you? As for the grace; he is longing to give it. Until you can hear Jesus in the silence of your own heart, you will not be able to hear him saying, ‘I thirst’ in the hearts of the poor. Never give up this daily intimate contact with Jesus as the real living person—not just the idea (emphasis mine!).

As Mother Teresa’s 1993 letter goes on to emphasize, “How can we last even one day without hearing Jesus say, ‘I love you’—impossible. Our soul needs that as much as the body needs to breathe the air. If not, prayer is dead—meditation only thinking. Jesus wants you each to hear him—speaking in the silence of your heart…

My children, you don’t have to be different for Jesus to love you. Only believe—you are precious to him. Bring all you are suffering to his feet—only open your heart to be loved by him as you are. He will do the rest.

~Blessed Teresa of Calcutta,

as quoted in Magnificat,

January 8, 2015.

photos of street art in Valparaiso and Santiago de Chile

God's amusing and weird sense of humor

We’ve all experienced them at one time or another—those moments when a coincidence reminds us that the world truly is very small, and that we’re all connected somehow.

Like the day I told my children a story about Jill, my high school friend from Louisiana, and then Jill randomly happened to call me. Or how for six months we admired the house that we now live in before it went on the market—the month that we began to seriously look for a home in Norman.

How about the summer vacation when we set up our tent at the Moraine Park Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park and discovered that the people in the next campsite lived not only in Oklahoma, and in Norman, but also in our same neighborhood!

Some people call this serendipity, or simply luck. Others say that coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous. I call it God’s (sometimes very weird and) always-surprising sense of humor.

Whatever you choose to call it, coincidences become moments of opportunity. I can either shake my head at the seemingly random chance happening, or I can see God’s hand at play in the situation.

To see God—and to acknowledge all as God’s gift—requires awareness. This is a spiritual attitude, and a deliberate daily habit that demands my practice and discipline. It invites me to be attentive to the hand of God at work all around me.

So perhaps when I happen to run into—for the third time this week--that same person unexpectedly at the bank, I'll take notice. Or maybe the next time I walk into the Firestone and realize I'm sitting next to an old friend, I can make a point of being present to her as if God had arranged the meeting.

Perhaps God has!