The Seen and The Unseen

The seen and the unseen. What is apparent always has a part that is not. The web, how we are all connected is like the yarn at the memorial yesterday. This post is about a close friend, a new neighbor, wanting new lungs, and someone at Express Scripts Pharmacy.

When these things happen, I am talking about serendipity, I want to run to the dictionary to look up the word. What is the definition of this experience. Why does it keep happening? How does it keep happening? Serendipity: "the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way." So does that really mean that it is all by chance? I thought that serendipity was the experience of an unexpected event or connection that was more than chance. I believe it occurs in a space and time where the underlying, unseen, interconnecting web lays and is from time to time revealed. The experience is filled with surprise, delight, and magical. It is a confirmation of faith, of faith that things are the way they are for a reason, that things are really not so random.

At the memorial yesterday my friend lead the mourners in a ritual to demonstrate our connectedness by passing a ball of yarn and holding its string. We did so, and it was a simple yet profound experience of what brings a community together, a common purpose or common experience of some kind. That friend shares a common experience with me. She had a child with a serious genetic illness that eventually took her daughter at the age of 4. She knows what it is like to fight for the life of your child. The ending of her story was sad at the loss of her daughter but life with her Sophia was filled with deep moment to moment joy, love and appreciation of life. She now had the opportunity to go full circle and support another mother and family suffering the grief of losing a child, thus adding to the intricacy of the web being woven. It was exactly 5 years since the memorial for her child in the same park, another serendipity. And today this special friend plays in another part of the seen and unseen web where we are connected by the yarn.

My new neighbor upstairs invited me to visit this evening. She is a very interesting and warm woman with a darling dog. We had a good time enjoying wine and getting to know each other. Our sharing came to a point of connection when we discovered that she knew my memorial yarn spinning friend and her husband. The connection was made as she began to tell me the story of her friends with a child with a devastating disease. The memorial yarn made its way into her living room entwining us with our connection to community that we never knew was there until now. Amazed, we both were giddy at how we could come around to knowing these same people. She knew them before Sophia was born and had not seen them for many years. We are now slated for dinner soon, the three of us, to see more of how we connect and are meant to be friends at this time.

And we are all connected by way of Anna and her CF and now her needing new lungs. In the Native American tradition the great spirit and mother earth weave their webs as the spider does when it builds its delicate web with sparkling jewels of dew drops. Look at a spider's web and see how it connects and floats in space making it seen and unseen at the same time. And Anna's need for lungs and the calls and prayers by the spiders and the crows and all the people in our lives has apparently reached the heart of someone until now unknown in our web.

Last week, Anna received one of her medications through her mail order pharmacy. On the receipt was a yellow post it note. On the note written by someone's hand was the word, Manifest. That is all, just this word. A little strange don't you think? Did someone write that word because they felt connected by the unseen web of yarn being passed from one to the other through space and time and prayer? Did they feel compelled to encourage Anna to think big and be bold and ask for what she really wants? That is the only explanation that we can imagine. Never has a prescription arrived with a post it note let alone one with such a poignant word.

Anna took this to heart and hand, and decided to paint what she plans to manifest, her healthy lungs. It is to be, to be Manifest. At the right time, when it is meant to be, as it fits in the web as the yarn is passed from one to the other.