FFs #37: Was It More Than Serendipity?
Instances of Happenstance and a Grandma in Trouble
In This Issue
Reflecting on Serendipity
Now that I’ve been home from Community of Christ's World Conference in Kansas City, Missouri for nearly a week, I’ve had some time to reflect back on all that happened. I already hit the highlights for you, between last week’s Fractal Fridays and my daily Substack Notes.
It occurs to me that a lot of my success in getting my book (The Spiritual Life Writing Workbook) and my message in front of the right people could be considered serendipitous.
At the Library, Thursday, May 29. The day before Conference was called into session, I went to the library where my friend Bill (
) told me they were having a used book sale. The library was on my list to give a complimentary copy of my workbook.While I was there, I got to talk about the workbook with the librarian and her assistant. They agreed to take a copy.
And then I recognized another person looking through the used books. It was Jenn, the person in charge of the Conference. I introduced myself, told her about the workbook, and handed her a bookmark.
It wasn’t until later in the Conference that I heard that, in addition to an ongoing role in communications, Jenn was elected president of an important committee. I didn’t even have her on my initial list as someone to contact. I just jumped in when I happened to see her in the library.
And Then More Things Happened
At the Star Trek Table, Saturday, May 31. Bill had signed up for a table in the Mission Expo. But when we arrived, the organizers had forgotten us. They squeezed us in…at a spot between the door and the bathrooms.
What can I say? Location, location, location!
During the Tornado Warning, Wednesday, June 4. Maybe you read my Note about evacuating to the basement during a tornado warning or remember me mentioning it last week in Fractal Fridays.
Serendipitously, before I made my way back, I spotted our just-retired church president [Steve Veazey], normally surrounded by a bevy of assistants, but now just one of the gang in the shelter.
I couldn’t believe my luck. I quickly pulled out a marketing bookmark, introduced myself, and gave him my shpiel.
He was super nice, of course. I wouldn’t have expected otherwise. Who knows where that will go.
And Then One Last Thing Happened
In the Conference Chamber on the Last Day, Friday, June 6. I wrote a Note about this one also. But you haven’t heard the backstory (which I alluded to in my note).
First, let me tell you about John Hamer, the guy in the Facebook post.
John was one of the people I had on my list of possible recipients of a complimentary copy of the workbook. He is the pastor of the mostly on-line congregation known as Beyond the Walls (BTW), in Toronto, Canada.
BTW is a big deal. When my own congregation’s building was closed during COVID, I regularly attended their services. They had the second largest attendance of all online religious services IN CANADA.
I had spoken to John a couple of times during the week, but never when I had a copy of the workbook in my hand, ready to give to him. By Friday, I figured I’d just let my co-author,
, give him a copy next time she was in Toronto.Now Here’s the Interesting Part
In the Conference chamber, we had been struggling with glitchy connections between the nine delegate podiums and the rostrum all week. On Friday morning, the connection to the delegate podium closest to the Canadian delegation was lost. And John wanted to speak to the resolution under debate.
Consequently, he walked back to the podium two rows behind me. And he sat directly behind me to wait to be called on by the church’s new (female!) president, Stassi Cramm, so he could speak to the resolution under consideration.
Since he was hanging out in my area, I took the opportunity to give him my last copy of the workbook. I signed it. I let him know there was no charge because he was on the list to get a complimentary copy already. Bill (
) took our picture with the workbook, at John’s suggestion.
And here we are... 133 people have Liked either his post or my re-stack of it on Facebook. To some people, that’s not much. To me, it might be life changing.
And it was all due to a specific broken podium.
Serendipity?
Some would call this series of events serendipitous. But in my worldview, it’s all God/Lord/Lady/Higher Power/Spirit/Your Name of Choice.
In my practice of Listening for Guidance, I have received numerous messages about the need for this workbook. About the key role of sacred stories in leading people into a personal relationship with the divine.
In my worldview, this week was about The Lady (my new name of choice) guiding events to ensure that the workbook—or awareness of it—got into those hands that could best help get the message out.
As Stassi Cramm likes to say—Onward! 😊
Excerpt: Even Grandmas Get in Trouble
Emeraude, berry pies, bags of pennies, and a party skill.
[This is the fourth article in my new series—The Wisdom in Our Breadcrumbs: a Trail Lit Mostly with Love.]
Of all the relatives I spent time with growing up, I got to know Gramma Gladys the best. Gramma (Gladys Lillian Helen Cousins Hines) was my father's mother. She smelled of Emeraude perfume, had wavy blue hair (like lots of old ladies in the mid-20th century), and red polish on the nails of her gnarled, arthritic fingers.
Some summers, not every summer, I would get to stay at her house in Gibsonia (north of Pittsburgh, PA) for a couple weeks. Just Gramma and me. In her tiny, dilapidated shack of a home, never intended to be more than a summer camp house, but pressed into full-time service when she and Grandpa Hines divorced.
She had no running water, no toilet—in the 1960s. She used an outhouse. But she mostly let me use a chamber pot.
She went for fresh water every so often, at a nearby "well" that looked to me like nothing more than a bare metal pipe coming out of a hillside. She'd load up her tiny, tin-can-y Renault with all the empty gallon milk jugs it would hold. Then, at the well, she'd patiently fill them up, one by one.
She never got to take a real bath unless she was visiting us or Aunt Juanita. With no running water and no bath tub or shower, sponge baths at the kitchen sink were the best she could manage.
So in the middle of my two-week visits…
[Click here to read the rest.]
In honor of my other Grandma, Frances—who was a professional seamstress—Happy National Sewing Machine Day!
If you know someone who needs to hear what I have to say, please share or restack.
Thanks for reading Spiritual Life Storyteller’s Fractal Fridays newsletter! Subscribe for free to get the latest stories and updates.
Getting too much email? Click here to update your preferences. If you select only Fractal Fridays, you’ll get a once-a-week email that will include excerpts of anything else I’ve written.