Last month my friend, Sam, told me he’d
inexplicably dreamed of Carnival in Rio. The next morning on a whim he decided to google
Carnival, and he discovered it started that very morning. I’m not a math wizard, but I think the
chances of this happening at random are 365 to 1.
Late in 1998 my wife and I prayerfully decided
to adopt a child. The next morning I
received an email from Families Thru
International Adoption, and our middle daughter is the rest of the story.
Carl Jung described this spectacular
timing of dreams and events as “synchronicity.” I do not know how to calculate
the likelihood of the perfect timing of emails.
But this synchronicity is such a widespread phenomenon as to suggest the
world is alive with a mysterious providence.
The famous theologian Wolfhart
Pannenberg was raised as an atheist under the Nazi regime. Yet, at age 16, as
World War II was nearing its end, he had a life-changing experience walking
home from a piano lesson:
“The sun was setting, and, though I had
experienced many sunsets before, there was a moment when there was no
difference between myself and the light surrounding me. This is not easy to
describe… It made me think. It opened me
to the mystery of reality.”
Dreams, synchronous events, the feeling
of being united to light—such things beg for attention. When I was ten my Dad
stood over a 35 foot golf putt. He
looked up at me, saying, “I’m going to make it.” As the
ball dropped in the cup he began talking about this mysterious sense of
alignment and confidence that occasionally overtook him.
Such things fire my imagination. Others ignore my friend’s dream, my
daughter’s adoption story, and Pannenberg’s vision. They can stand on the green
with my father or watch athletes perform at inexplicable levels and repeatedly
have nothing more to say besides, “Lucky shot.”
I
wonder if they are bored.
