I have a somewhat wavering faith in something I cannot name. Call it God. Call it a higher power. Call it the universe. I don't know what it is, but I believe in it even when I also doubt it. (Like, how can entire ethnicities, countries, genders, religions catch so much hell if there is a higher power?) It is beyond my understanding, but then so would God be. What keeps me believing or makes me return to believing just when I think I no longer believe is a feeling that unseen forces are at work in my life.
I shared this story with a BB (blogosphere buddy) and she enjoyed it so I will share it with all of you. It illustrates what I mean. About 7 years ago a friend of mine applied for a job that as soon as she told me about it, I felt like it sounded perfect for ME, which, of course, I didn't tell her. They offered her the position, and she ended up declining it. I assumed they would just offer it to the next person in line. A different friend told me about another job so I looked in the paper and what did I see, but the job I wanted and my friend turned down. I applied for it and they offered it to me.
Before I started, I was working on the Age Ain't Nothing but a Number anthology proposal and one particular day was feeling kind of discouraged about it and didn't feel like working on it. I picked up the folder and moved it to the other side of my desk thinking I just can't face this today. 20 minutes later the phone rang. It was my new boss. He said I have a message for you from your agent. I almost fell over! Turns out, he bought my books on Amazon and found out that he and I had the SAME AGENT in NYC! (A different agent than I have now.) He called her to tell her he had hired me and she told him, Tell her I'm waiting on that book proposal.
Before I started, I was working on the Age Ain't Nothing but a Number anthology proposal and one particular day was feeling kind of discouraged about it and didn't feel like working on it. I picked up the folder and moved it to the other side of my desk thinking I just can't face this today. 20 minutes later the phone rang. It was my new boss. He said I have a message for you from your agent. I almost fell over! Turns out, he bought my books on Amazon and found out that he and I had the SAME AGENT in NYC! (A different agent than I have now.) He called her to tell her he had hired me and she told him, Tell her I'm waiting on that book proposal.
I couldn't help but see that as a sign that I was on the right path. That job was very important to me because of the people it brought into my life, people I'm still friends with several years after not working there anymore. And, of course, that moment gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going on the proposal, which opened the world up to me in many ways. So I believe.
Now I've got this song stuck in my head.
6 comments:
always a great story!
I am always on the watch for signs from the universe; so much that it's laughable the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" connections I make. I just dug through a pile of a half dozen versions of Chapter 1 of my draft manuscript and there it was -- yesterday at 9:37 AM I changed "complemented" to "in perfect synchronicity". Hmm...everything means something :)
Leslie, hope you know you're one of the people I was talking about!
Lisa, so you're saying synchronicity was on your mind too? Makes me curious about your chapter 1. :-)
I totally believe in synchronicity - I believe in it intellectually, in the way that Jung wrote about it, and in my gut. One of my favorite words is serendipity. I once did not believe in God, now believe that She/He is bigger than my disbelief. Synchronicity for me is another word for serendipity, another word for God speaking to me, "universe" another word for God and vice versa. Even if I didn't believe in God, I'd believe in an intelligent universe, and maybe that's how I'd explain wars and pestilence; the universe allows us to do as we do, and when it needs to scratch itself or roll over, it simply does: earthquake, hurricane. It's not that it/He/She doesn't care for us, it simply must do as it does. And humans are no more important than the gnats we fan away, the ants we crush. We are fleas on the universe's back, and it loves us, the same way we love the hairs on our legs as we pluck and shave them away. Your post spoke to me, b/c I had recently added to an old blog post: Not only do I have a heart, I am the heart of a larger thing, the heart of something huge, beating. Feeling this knowing is the closest I can get to God...and that is what synchronicity is to me too - God speaking. I told myself I was going to write a blog response rather than clogging up your comments, but...Oh and thanks for the Police vid! One of my absolute favorite groups ever, and favorite men ever - Sting!
Earth Angel,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful post! Never worry about "clogging" my comments when you express yourself so beautifully.
I love what you say about the universe just being what it is and doing what it does without judgement or malice or concern for us at all. It's a very accepting philosophy that gives me great peace.
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