Serendipity

Currently I am coming to the closing of my second read-through of The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck, and, again, he’s painted a wonderful image and conveyed well this image of an elegant yet delicate illustration of serendipity, or “an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. (dictionary.com)”

Peck’s conclusion, to which I heartily agree, clarifies for me the details of the periphery of happenstance or coincidence with reference to prayer; Peck’s understanding is far more beautiful and leaves room for the mind to wonder, dream, hope, and anticipate.

Within the last year, I’ve given up on many of the Christian-taught ideas on the topic of prayer; moreover, I’ve given up on the way I’ve seen and believed prayer/answer-to-prayer works. My divorced thoughts have left me believing all that happens to us or around us following a prayer is not answer to prayer; what we ‘’see’’ or ‘’notice’’ after we verbalize or vociferate a prayer is what we look for. We see what we want to see. Our minds create what we need to see. We, in some fashion or form, create the answer to prayer we are looking so eagerly for, sometimes having to add or subtract some element of the request to God due to the answer in front of us not exactly lining up with our original appeal. The “answer” could look drastically different. And, in order to make sense of this varying answer we must look at our prayer in a way that keeps God out from under the umbrella of blame, fault, or responsibility, or in some way appearing as he may be ignoring us; for example, perhaps the prayer we originally submitted wasn’t exactly what we “needed” but more what we “wanted” (that’s a common statement in the Christian community). Therefore, God can change it one way or the other in accordance to his “will,” and in order to keep us selfless and moving towards the direction of downward mobility, and in doing so, exonerates or absolves Him from blame when, if we look close enough, the prayer was not truly answered at all. But if our prayer wasn’t answered, what is the action in front of us? I see something, right?

I’ve been chalking much of these and ideas like these mentioned above to coincidence or happenstance (and sometimes to physiological need to hear our God speak or act); Peck calls it serendipity. What a much more poignant, potent, beautiful way of looking at the world of spirituality. Coincidence feels more personal superimposing the definition of serendipity atop it. This idea doesn’t give me the desire to thank God for whatever happens to “answer my prayer” but does give me hope and desire to take a deep breath and realize how fortunate I am: lucky, well-off, taken care of, protected, safe; I’ve got an amazing life – even on the worst day. And all the little serendipitous things I encounter along the path of life, I’ll stop, take a deep breath, and be thankful in the depth of my heart- my being; this is what I hope God wants of me- truly being thankful for the life I’m living. Not simply doing lip service by saying the words “thank you” but living a life that shout the words “I’m thankful to be alive! I am thankful for all that I have!”

Serendipity… roughly, the gift - beautiful gift- of an unsought, unsearched, much needed response to our hearts hope.

Today is a new day, new breath, new life, new opportunity; with new adventure and new hope.

Amen.