SERENDIPIDITY

SERENDIPIDITY

My favorite son and only child (a kid at heart) stopped by in the middle of the afternoon to retrieve his emotional support cup (you never see him without it) that he had forgotten the evening before. He found his mother where he expects to find me, on the porch staring into my green oasis. It may have appeared to him that I was sitting aimlessly. That was not the case at all. I was intentionally paying attention to the things that connect me to my humanness through nature.

My man-child was drawn like a magnet to steel to the four containers of bubbles left the day before by the village youngsters. My husband joined us shortly, and for the next few minutes we watched a mature thirty-seven-year-old man expertly blow bubbles. He eventually blew a humongous bubble and caught it on the wand. We stared at the multicolor sheath of trapped air until it burst and then my son exclaimed, “wouldn’t it be fun to try and take a picture through the bubble.” That began a fun-filled time of his blowing bubbles and his mother and father attempting to take a picture with a bubble between the subject and the camera and photographing the stream of bubbles floating all over the porch.

Serendipitous moments are unplanned and accidentally produce a positive outcome in everyday life. Blowing bubbles and taking pictures checks all the boxes.

There is but one criterion for preparing for serendipitous moments – prepare for the unpreparable. I knew my son would come quickly to retrieve his cup. I try to live with a spirit of expectancy – to be wowed at any time – that each day I will get to do something for the first time – that the smallest of experiences have the potential to meet the expectations.

Some days I am rewarded, some days not, but seldom do I have a day when I don’t expect a moment that supersedes anything that I could have imagined.

With a degree of regularity, I ask you these questions: When was the last time you did something for the first time? When did you last engage in child’s play? I add to those questions, when did you last experience a serendipitous moment? My brief encounter with my son answered all the questions.

In my opinion, for many it is not the lack of these moments, i.e., a chance encounter in the grocery store with a long-lost friend, it is a lack of being aware when they happen. Expect to be wowed by something every day. What do you lose if you don’t? What do you gain if you do?

Hebrews 11:1

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---My expectations are grounded in the belief that the universe wants me to be wowed by all of creation.

LOOKING THROUGH A BUBBLE