Have you ever had a coincidence?

[rsd]

I once read that a coincedence is God's way of remaining anonymous. I have always liked them. If this thread has any life to it I will post one of mine. Just the most meaningful, #1 consequence in your life is what I am asking for. (Thanks to 9-10ths_Penguin for pointing out that my spelling sucks)

 

[Gjallarhorn]

All actions have consequences. I'm not sure what you mean...

EDIT: Ah...you mean coincidence. I've had a few. None on a level to challenge my views on gods though.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I once read that a consequence is God's way of remaining anonymous. I have always liked them. If this thread has any life to it I will post one of mine. Just the most meaningful, #1 consequence in your life is what I am asking for.

Assuming you mean coincidences, here's one: I'm pretty sure I saw someone I went to school with today at the subway station, but it was as we were pulling away while she stood on the platform. I hadn't seen her since graduation.

But as for how meaningful coincidences are, I refer you to this cartoon:

 

[rsd]

All actions have consequences. I'm not sure what you mean...

EDIT: Ah...you mean coincidence. I've had a few. None on a level to challenge my views on gods though.

Yep, coincidence. Sorry. Would still like to hear the #1 that comes to mind.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Yep, coincidence. Sorry. Would still like to hear the #1 that comes to mind.

No clue. The one that springs to mind is my mother semi-predicting the time of her death.

 

[Falvlun]

My childhood dog ripped apart a book entitled "Good dogs, Bad habits". A couple years later, no joke, she ate a book entitled "My dog ate it." Bad dog. Apparently she can read and has a good sense of humor.

 

[rsd]

My childhood dog ripped apart a book entitled "Good dogs, Bad habits". A couple years later, no joke, she ate a book entitled "My dog ate it." Bad dog. Apparently she can read and has a good sense of humor.

That's fun. But right, that she would eat two "dog" books is unique, unless you had a million of them around all the time. The greater the odds of it happening, the sweeter the coincidence. For example, when I was 5 I was living in Alaska. My dad bought me a BB rifle. He told me to be very careful to never point it at anybody because you could put their eye out with it. So this was on my mind and I was very careful.

One day me and my Little friend took the BB gun out of my dad's room and walked into the woods that were across the street. And low and behold a perfect target, standing 15 yards away ...a big brown telephone pole. I made my little friends stand next to me, but not too close. In the back of my mind I was aware of what my dad and cautioned me about. Then I lifted the rifle and shot. To this day I can see that copper BB fly through the air and hit the telephone dead center. But then the BB did the unthinkable. What were the odds. It bounced straight back at us and hit my friend just under the eye. He was ok, but only by an inch.

Even though I was just five years old, at that moment I understood exactly what a coincidence is ...but it would be many many years later before I even knew that there was a word to describe such an odd occurrence.

 

[Many Sages One Truth]

When I felt threatened by someone on a train ride, so I prayed and asked that if the person meant me any harm, take care of it. He was taken off the train and arrested the next day for theft, and a ton of stuff he took from other passengers was found on him.

 

[rsd]

When I felt threatened by someone on a train ride, so I prayed and asked that if the person meant me any harm, take care of it. He was taken off the train and arrested the next day for theft, and a ton of stuff he took from other passengers was found on him.

Sounds like your nice prayers intervened to protect more than just you. I am thinking that because you felt threatened, that emotion intensified the intensity of your prayers. At least in my life, intensity has always produced the most wonderous events and most amazing coincidences.

Long ago, one summer I had decided to strictly follow the teachings of Professor Arnold Ehret and his "Mucousless Diet Healing System." Combining my daily regimen with morning runs in the park, I felt great and full of vitality. But eventually after several months of following my rigorous diet I went back to my normal eating habits.

I have always had a special fondness for ice cream and directly across the street from my shop was Friendly’s ice cream store. I also have a tendency to go overboard. During one particular eating binge, I guess I must have consumed four or five double-dip cones. I love ice cream. Needless to say I felt pretty glazed over by the time I polished off the last one. Then, as I stood watching the store close, once again I became overwhelmed with an acute desire for sweets. But for some peculiar reason my craving switched from ice cream to chocolate chip cookies. Not the fancy kind, but the inexpensive ones in the blue and white boxes that they sell in upstate New York. Trying to figure out where I could buy some, I immediately became disheartened when I realized how late it was and that all the stores were closed—except for Price Chopper.

For a moment I thought about walking there, but it was too far and much too late. Nor did I feel like going to the trouble of walking across the street, taking a bike out of my shop, and getting there that way. Becoming very frustrated, my feelings began to get the best of me and in great despair I started walking down the sidewalk. But I didn’t get very far.

Slowly nearing the end of the block, with the desire for the cookies totally consuming me, I just stopped walking, closed my eyes, and in an instant I completely merged with the desire for those chocolate chip cookies. Altogether I must have remained there for sixty seconds.

Beginning to move again, I crossed over the quiet intersection and began walking past a deserted gas station. But again I didn’t get very far because all at once I noticed a box on the dimly lit sidewalk. Full of curiosity, I walked over to it and gently nudged it with my shoe. To my complete surprise the object felt like it had something in it. There was very little light and not having the slightest clue as to what it was, I bent over to take a closer look.

Picking it up with my hand instantly confirmed in my mind that, indeed, it was full of something. But never in a million years was I prepared for the sight I saw when I turned it over. It was the exact box of chocolate chip cookies I had been craving—brand-new and unopened.

But at that same instant, like a bolt of divine lightning, it struck me that this was far beyond any ordinary coincidence and that I was experiencing the most incredible moment in my life. I remember running all the way back to my bicycle shop. With the box in hand, sitting on the ground crouched up against the door, I slowly ate the most delicious cookies I have ever tasted.

 

[Quagmire]

Do you want the title changed?

 

[rsd]

Do you want the title changed?

Can you do that? I mispelled coincidence and my editing options let me change all but fix the title. :yes:

 

[Quagmire]

Can you do that? I mispelled coincidence and my editing options let me change all but fix the title. :yes:

Done.

edit: and here's one of mine: http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/1701508-post24.html

 

[Penumbra]

I once read that a coincedence is God's way of remaining anonymous. I have always liked them. If this thread has any life to it I will post one of mine. Just the most meaningful, #1 consequence in your life is what I am asking for. (Thanks to 9-10ths_Penguin for pointing out that my spelling sucks)

I do not recall any significant coincidences in my life.

Boring, I suppose.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Many.

One of my favorites was when I asked God for a sign that he does exist, and I found the God Delusion... I asked him is I should go to church, than on Sunday that weekend I woke up late...


So basically the opposite of a sign lol...

 

[rsd]

Done.

edit: and here's one of mine: http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/1701508-post24.html

Just read your entire posting. Great story. Your name on the envelope was pretty telling. I hope others click on your link and read it. And thanks for the edit.

 

[YmirGF]

I don't believe in coincidences.

That said, I certainly have had my fair share, and then some, of what others might call coincidences.

 

[rsd]

I do not recall any significant coincidences in my life.

Boring, I suppose.

I don't know why I have had so many. As I think I already mentioned, I once read that, A coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. I like this idea. In any event, they are truly a delight to experience. They are divine treats—spiritual magic performed by the greatest magician of them all: God. No two tastes alike, and they are spontaneously full of humor and wonder. But above all, at least from my perspective, a coincidence is a blessing. They are an added surprise in my stocking. I am truly grateful.

Here is one that took place in 1973 in Southern California:

I wanted to take my wife, Patty, on a trip to the beach. We were living near Lucerne Valley, California, overlooking the Mojave Desert. The small mountain cabin we were staying in was nestled under a beautiful pine tree and it was so refreshing to wake up to the sweet desert air and the sounds of chirping birds. We were living there, helping my sister and her husband, Charles Berner, build a spiritual retreat for members of the Institute of Ability.

At the time things were at a lull, so I thought this would be a good excuse to get away for the day, seeing how she had been raised in Colorado and had never seen the ocean. At the end of our outing, preparing to drive back to the desert, I noticed that the gas tank on my truck was about empty. Not being particularly choosy I simply pulled into the nearest station along the highway to fill up. As soon as I stepped to the pavement, out of the blue, a young man came running over to me and wanted to know if I was from Colorado. He must have recognized my license plates.

I told him yes, that we had most recently come from Paonia, Colorado, (pop. 1200) and that we were now living in the desert near Lucerne Valley.

Immediately he lit up like a Christmas tree, declaring that he, too, was from Paonia. Both of us being a little dumbfounded by this unusual coincidence, continued to talk. I told him that a few months back my wife and I had been in Paonia, visiting a good friend of ours, Pat Starr—helping her with some of her heavier chores. Again he lit up, declaring that he and Pat were also good friends.

This was all very strange, meeting this wandering soul, at this particular spot, out of all the millions of people in California. The odds of us meeting at all were incalculable. In addition, if I had stopped at a different gas station or had pulled in five minutes earlier (or five minutes later), chances are we would have never met. But this wasn’t a miracle, or anything like that—or was it?

I also told him that while working on Pat’s farm I had repaired the leaky roof on her root cellar. The young man then proceeded to tell me that he was the person who had originally dug Pat’s root cellar, years ago. After I filled my gas tank and said goodbye, I drove off, trying to explain to my wife what had just happened.

 

[rsd]

I don't believe in coincidences.

That said, I certainly have had my fair share, and then some, of what others might call coincidences.

Are you saying that you do, or dont belive. I belong to those who do belive in them.

Take, for example, this incredible story that appeared in Denver, printed in the Rocky Mountain News, Wednesday, January 9, 1991. What happened is that a fifth-grade student (Cetericka) had joined in with the rest of her classmates at Windsor Forest Elementary School, in Atlanta, Georgia, and had written a letter to one of our soldiers in Saudi Arabia. Eventually her little envelope filtered its way through a mountain of backlogged mail, finally getting tossed into a pouch with a bunch of other letters headed for Fort Apache, somewhere near the Kuwait border. Remember, this was during the first Gulf War in 1991.

Bored to death like the rest of our half million soldiers waiting for the January 15th deadline to arrive, Army Sergeant Rory Lomas was glad to see the unit’s clerk come into the mess tent and yell out mail call. He was hoping to get a letter from his wife, Barbara, but instead was tossed an envelope addressed: "To Any American Soldier."
"What the heck," Sergeant Lomas thought, "any mail is better than no mail." But what Sergeant Lomas wasn’t prepared for was the neatly penned signature at the end of the letter. It was signed: "Your friend in America, Cetericka Lomas"—his daughter! You can just imagine the look on the Sergent's face!

Likewise, I’m sure that Richard Bach (author of the novel, Jonathan Livingston Seagull) received more than a little dose of excitement as the incredible events unfolded for him when his rare biplane, a 1929 Detroit-Parks P-2A Speedster, upended in Palmyra, Wisconsin. Only eight of these planes were ever built, and because it was so rare, to acquire the necessary part to repair the aircraft seemed rather unlikely.

Observing Bach’s predicament, a man who owned a nearby hanger asked if he could help. When Bach described the uncommon part he needed, the man walked over to a pile of junk and pointed to the precise piece. Richard Bach later said, "The odds against our breaking the biplane in a little town that happened to be home to a man with the forty-year-old part to repair it; the odds that he would be on the scene when the event happened; the odds that we’d push the plane right next to his hanger, within ten feet of the part we needed—the odds were so high that coincidence was a foolish answer." (RICHARD BACH, Nothing by Chance, quoted in Reader’s Digest, August 1979, p. 118)

 

[YmirGF]

Are you saying that you do, or dont belive. I belong to those who do belive in them.

I said, I don't believe in coincidences. I did not say that I do not believe in what others would call coincidence. Mull it awhile. It makes more sense than you might imagine.

If you want a more pragmatic answer, I believe in a synchronicity that exists at far deeper levels of awareness than the average mortal is aware of. Though I am often filled with awe, I am rarely surprised. You have to appreciate that I believe that reality is a psychological gestalt of unimaginable proportions, of which, we are only partially aware, and of that, only on the most superficial or "surface" levels.

In this sense, I am meaning "synchronicity" as being seemingly coincidental, but that is only from a very superficial perspective. Forgive me, but I wrote a piece called, "The Inter-relation of all events" when I was 18, so I have been working with these ideas for some time now. I don't see coincidence, I see connections at deeper intuitive areas of consciousness, perhaps seemingly unavailable to other human animals.

We call these things coincidences because we are unable to define more interesting, instantaneous modes of communication or perceptual grasp. We are unable to accept a larger framework that we are possibly working within and so we interpret reality as being coincidental to fill in the gaps we do not allow ourselves to conceive because of our existing belief about reality.

I hope that clarifies some things....

 

[Landerage]

Many.

One of my favorites was when I asked God for a sign that he does exist, and I found the God Delusion... I asked him is I should go to church, than on Sunday that weekend I woke up late...


So basically the opposite of a sign lol...

I usualy get similar things as you, sometimes when I have a profound question and that nor science nor religion can answer, I ask God to send me an answer someway. I remember when I was in biology class, and the teacher was explaining about evolution, and she said a creepy idea that was proven scientificaly, she said that there was a time that different human species exist at the same time, and each specie cannot get married to other species, I was like struck by lightning to see that a woman and a man from two human species cannot get married ;s But then I asked God to show me the meaning of this, 2 days later in my sleep i had a vision of God implying to me that this theory was just put to perturbate people, and those who dont beleive in him. And I remember woking up that day overwhelmed =) was a nice feeling.
Another coincidence I had, when i was around 8 years old ( i was a silly boy..) I was confused wether God exist or not, I took a deck of 52 cards and I withdraw a card, and asked God that if he's there to let me draw that same card after i shuffle the deck It did work and i took exactely the same card as before after a good shuffle! and I said loud : I BELEIVE IN YOU yea felt happy too about that..