I’m really not sure how to explain it.
As time moves forward and the occurrence of the events I’m about to share multiply, there’s some measure of understanding revealing itself to me – perhaps there ares reasons when connections are made and everything starts to make sense.
You may recall moments where an event materializes and suddenly connects the dots from the past. For a brief and puzzling moment, it seems we have a glimpse into a divine whisper that there was a plan all along the way.
The longer I’m fortunate enough to walk with a shadow, these events are occurring much more often – especially if we pay attention.
Attention? Yes. That’s becoming more of a challenge in the modern age when boredom and presence are sabotaged by everything from the pace of everyday life or our smartphone addition. However, it seems lately, these moments are occurring more often and it’s worth recording and once again asking the question.
Last night, Margeret Welborn and I were standing in the living room in Rogersville. Together with my father-in-law Jim, they had just arrived on a rainy evening to stay a few days and we were discussing the cosmos and among other items – my rocks.
On my desk, there are a few crystals and then there are just… rocks. Nothing fancy. Some that I pick up along the way – round, oblong, gray, cold, nondescript. Just a few memorable moments etched with liquid paper and a date and time recorded with a Sharpie to share with the future where they came from.
Several years ago, I took off on a solo adventure to Concord Massachusetts. The year was 2006 and after reading Walden and as much Ralph Waldo Emerson I could consume – I was compelled to visit the home, community and graves of two of my favorite authors.
As I rolled the rocks over in my hand, my scrawl indicated a few labels. “Walden Pond,” “Emerson’s Back Porch” and “Emerson’s Grave.”
The date…10/11/2006.
Surprised and frozen in another moment of deja vu, this date marks the most important event of my life.
One year ago today on 10/11/2014, I stood on the shores of Folly Beach and married my wife Kelli. With a golden sunset lighting her face, her eyes sparkled with turquoise tears that afternoon and this moment will forever remind me how grateful I am to call her my siren.
In 2006, I was sitting in Emerson’s backyard, writing in my journal and asking God several questions. One of the common ones centered around my fate in a relationship. Would my life continue to be a solitary path of introspection and study – or was something else possible? For more than twenty-five years, the first answer seemed to be a given.
That all changed in February of 2012 when I first met Kelli and looked into her eyes at a Kingsport Chamber event. She was with a client that night and from this one isolated and private moment I became enchanted with every nuance about this woman.
She is beautiful, intelligent, deeply passionate and at the time, my interest was respectfully a courtly love. I followed every blog post and comment shared from her social media contributions, but I had not idea our hearts would find their way toward each other.
My life has always seemed to evolve in a miraculous unfolding – just like many of us.
However, for many years, my appreciation of this fact was a bit too agnostic and ungrateful. Like a swift stream rushing toward an unknown destination, my thoughts were sprinkled with both awe and skepticism. My days were defined by my work, interests and my own story. For the most part, I assumed it was under the guidance of luck and an algorithm of unrelated events.
As I look back upon my journey with the luxury of many wonderful stories, it occurs much more often that God has appeared several times – right in front of me. In a voice, a scene, a sound a smell – most of these events fall into chance. The poetry of this mystical relationship often reveals itself in random and related events that suggest an order beyond our awareness.
Carl Jung referred to these moments as ‘Synchronicity.’ Sting wrote a song about it too, but I’ve always been amazed at these occurrences and lately, they happen so often that they deserve to have a record for my life – at the very least, a few pages in my journal.
Today was another one of those moments.
Before I met Kelli, I would argue the cold agnostic world random coincidences. A cosmos made up of natural causes and unrelated events. Her love and her sweet spirit of grateful living has forever transformed my spirit.
When I remember her eyes on that beach last year and the way her heart beats together with our own very special story – I’m convinced there’s a beauty, a deep relationship each of us can have with God. The only prerequisite is our silence to still the cacophony of our ego and breathe in the gratefulness of a miraculous life.
My soul is changed every moment. The day I married Kelli was a touching and personal testimony of how God, the angels, our family and our friends celebrated another holy event.
Our lives continue to lead toward greater evidence of a divine plan too and I have so much to be thankful for – especially this transformation.
Looking back at these rocks picked up in Concord, I could never imagined what I have today. A woman with a brilliant mind and an amazing heart, two beautiful and talented girls, rewarding creative work and plenty of laughter and music to animate my blessed life. A miracle indeed – a family.
If you find yourself puzzled by your current state of mind and the complexity of this amazing universe we all share, take the time to still your mind on your own private Walden Pond and be amazed at how blessed we are to catch a glimpse of the divine. It happens more often than you think.