Sweet Non-Synchronicity*

Sometimes the puzzle pieces—the ones that dropped on the floor or got wedged behind the sofa cushion—show back up on the table.

Sometimes the loose threads—the ones that unraveled or resisted clipping—get caught up and woven into the tapestry.

It is such sweet non-synchronicity when they do.

Due to a combination of full days, an upcoming training event, the holiday next week, and some accumulated comp time set to expire soon, I will be spending most of the next twelve days away from the office and, for the most part, away from my job. I truly love my job, but I recognize that I am deeply in need of this break.

So is it mere happenstance that the puzzle pieces are starting to show up on my table?

Deidra started it. Oh yes, I have no qualms about pointing the finger squarely at Deidra and saying, "You just had to write that, didn't you?" (And then for good measure, she turned around and wrote this too, which was just icing on the cake.)

Then Bradley Moore posted this at The High Calling. I read the paragraph about the National Audubon Society listing What We Are Not Doing and got so excited I sat up straight. When I finished Bradley's challenge to evaluate our activities in light of our goals, I felt a jolt.

About the time I was reading Bradley, I received an email from the library telling me the book I had ordered, Love Does by Bob Goff, had arrived. I'm not sure who out there in Bloggerville wrote about the book and inspired me to track it down (perhaps I read a review of it at The High Calling), but here it was. I opened it last night "just to try it" and am already halfway through it.

And then Leslie just had to post this in the middle of the night last night. (Leslie lives in Alaska and was gloating a bit, albeit very nicely, about the 22 hour day they just had.) Leslie hit a home run (as she is wont to do) with her discussion of how she rejects the notion of a day (or a life) cut into a thousand pieces and strives to live a "single-hearted" life instead. (Leslie is new to the blogging world, but she is a graceful and seasoned writer. I met her electronically when ordering her book, The Spirit of Food, which, come to think of it, I first heard of through Deidra.)

So there are threads from Deidra to The High Calling (which Deidra lead me to too, come to think of it) to Bob Goff (possibly via The High Calling) to Leslie (via Deidra).

These threads are coming together.

I am at a place in my life—temporarily, I fervently hope—where I am feeling that each day is cut into a thousand pieces. I am busy with a home project, the legal clinic is growing in leaps and bounds, there are two holiday concerts coming up, I am part of a team that just launched a new community initiative, and I am tired.

Bone tired. The type of tired I don't want to think about too long or too hard.

And yet, at the depth of my exhaustion, there are all these threads coming together. Deidra challenging me to put my dreams out there to God. Bradley Moore urging me to leverage my time and efforts towards those goals and dreams that "will actually make a difference in the long run." Bob Goff daring me to have "a secretly incredible life in an ordinary world." Leslie quietly exhorting me to do what I do "not out of mindlessness and instinct, but out of heart."

It is late morning as I write these words. We are promised record heat these next few days, but the house, open on one side, closed on the other, is still holding the sweet, cool air of last night. I took the time to bake a cake for Sam's birthday tomorrow and it is cooling on the racks in front of me. I am sitting at the kitchen table penning these lines, still wearing my favorite apron, now lightly dusted (not for the last time!) with flour. There are three small vials of bubble solution on the table as well. They caught my eye during an expedition to the store for supplies to finish the project. They reached out and said "whimsy" (one of Bob Goff's favorite words), "summer," "lighthearted." I was listening.

I still cannot see the tapestry, for all the threads are not yet together. I still have not completed the puzzle. But I am ready to open myself to the solution, to the completed thread.

*Note: When I first posted this, I used the phrase "synchronicity" to mean the coming together of connected events. As it turns out, "synchronicity" is a Jungian phrase describing seemingly related events that have no important causal connection. My point is the opposite: these were related events and occurrences (readings in this case) that do have a greater causal connection.