Most days, I am reminded that timing really is everything. What I struggle with is who to assign the credit to. Do I really believe that God has penciled me in for a 2:45 walk with my neighbor, who just happens to mention a master-naturalists workshop she'll be attending this summer? Or that He has nudged from my yearbook editor's lips these very specific words: "Hey, Holt. You ordered those nameplates for the books, right?"
As self-centered as I can be--and I do have pre-Copernican tendencies--I still hesitate to believe that God gives two hoots about my daily dealings, especially considering what else is on his celestial plate each day.
So, I tend to credit impeccable timing more to the act of paying attention than to anything larger or more mysterious. And I think that even the more religious part of me is okay with this explanation. After all, if God really is in the details, then we'd best be paying attention.
Regardless of how we end up explaining such events in our lives, it's hard to ignore the upside of those serendipity-dipped "aha!" moments when we just can't believe our luck. And this Spring--this most strange, menopausal season--has been rife with moments in which timing seemed to be on my side.
Tops, for me, was that walk with my neighbor, in which she mentioned the naturalists' workshop slated for this summer. It was one of those rare, warm March Saturdays, so my attention already was razor sharp. Her description, though, peppered with words like "Spring Creek Prairie," "birding," "Pioneers Park,"--those words were like a welcomed slap to my face, waking me up to opportunities I hungered for. Not more than ten minutes after we parted ways, I had happily shared my Visa-Card information with the Nebraska Master Naturalists program, signing up for that week-long workshop.
Still to this day, I shake my head in happy disbelief that such welcomed news had found its way to my ears.
And then there was that nature show Allison was watching one March Saturday morning, when I returned from grocery shopping. I barely had time to refrigerate the milk before she insisted I meet her in the living room. "I want to be a marine biologist," she sputtered, her enthusiasm uncontainable. "I love nature. I love being outdoors. I'm good at science and I don't mind working hard or getting dirty. . . ." What sane parent would nip that kind of talk in the bud?
This idea of studying biology--or some form of it--has only grown stronger since then, helped, in part, by a chance encounter with an Ideal Grocery customer this Wednesday. Allison had seen this customer before, noting the woman's easy presence, her preference for comfortable, outdoorsy clothing. What she hadn't known, though,--at least not until Wednesday, while packing the customer's groceries--was that this woman had studied marine biology at the University of Alaska, and was now a scientist studying the natural world in Nebraska.
Voila! Another happy synapse fires on an otherwise grey Spring day.
Both Allison and I were lucky enough to be paying attention at the right time. It makes me wonder how many magical encounters have slipped by me, for no better reason than because I was fretting about a future unknown, or distracted by a pile of papers that awaited me at home.
As for all those things that lay before us, just waiting to be noticed, it might be prime time to start referring to this moment as the HEAR and now.
Amen Jane!
ReplyDelete