Serendipity
I was sitting in a meeting yesterday morning — one of my favorite meetings — and had my little pocket journal with me, I carry to jot down things I hear that I want to remember. I remembered that I hadn’t made my “gratefuls” list for the day yet. This is a practice I got into late in February, and have continued doing ever since. Each morning, I list five things for which I am grateful.
While one person was in the middle of a pretty long share, that I had zoned out on a couple minutes before, I decided to write down my gratefuls for the day. One of my gratefuls was “serendipity”, just because. I’ve had some serendipitous things happen in my life, and last week at work had been marked by a significant serendipitous event.
After the meeting, as I walked down the steps and across the parking lot towards my car, a number of meeting members were milling around chatting, as often is the case after a meeting. A younger fellow who I didn’t recognize from the meeting walked over and asked if anyone was driving into the town of Vienna. I said that I was, and would be glad to give him a ride.
It turned out that he was a priest, though he didn’t look like one. He wasn’t in the usual priest garb, and seemed far too young to be a priest, though he was actually probably in his late 20’s, early 30’s. Since my son is 28 now, that still seems too young to me. He was in from Colorado to conduct a wedding that afternoon. He’d thought of ordering an Uber, but thought that was too impersonal, when he could interact with someone utilizing the church’s facilities for a ride.
I found him to be an interesting conversationalist, and asked him where he needed to go to in town. “I’m going in for breakfast, and heard that Anita’s is a good place for that.” I used to eat breakfast at Anita’s after our morning weekday meetings that I used to go to more often, with a friend who’s now moved away, who happens to be a protestant minister (I can’t remember what denomination he was.) I thought it might be interesting to get to know this young man a little better, and enjoyed talking with him, so asked if he’d mind if I joined him for breakfast. He was happy to have me join him.
We had a fascinating conversation over New Mexican breakfast fare — well, he had the spicy stuff, I just ordered the traditional eggs, bacon, home fries and toast breakfast, myself. He was very interested in learning more about my story, which I’m never shy about sharing with someone, and his was pretty fascinating, as well. He really had an impressive understanding about many life things for one so young, which prompted me to say, “How does one so young become so wise about the ways of the world?”
He told me about his upbringing, both parents were pretty hard partiers, then Mom left Dad and the kids when he was two, and Dad had to make a decision — continue his hard-partying ways, or straighten his act up and begin to raise his kids in a more structured environment. He chose the latter, and got involved in the church, and Nathan felt that helped him to grow up wiser for the wear. He was the middle child of three, with an older brother and a younger sister.
He asked my advice about a few things involved with leading his congregation. I was a little taken aback — “you’re asking ME about such things?” He was the only priest in a 2200 hundred family parish. I don’t know how he possibly managed a parish that big, by himself. I asked if his church had a robust small-group ministry. When we were more involved in church communities, we usually gravitated towards whatever small group ministry existed in the church, as that was where you really got to know people on a more intimate level. He said that was the next thing he planned to do, was grow such a ministry in his church.
Somehow, he must have deduced from my story that I had gone to Yale and gotten a degree there. He made the statement, “Now I can go back to my church and share with them some ideas I got from a Yale graduate!” I had grown up in Pittsburgh, but had moved to Connecticut when I was 17, gone to college there, and was now a government executive. I’m guessing those components of my story are what led him to his conclusion. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I never went to Yale, just Greater Hartford Community College for a year before I joined the Navy, and never even got a degree in anything, except maybe life’s school of hard knocks. I just let it go.
We had such a vibrant conversation, we exchanged numbers and e-mails, and said we would have to continue this conversation. I dropped him off at Jammin’ Java, where he planned to do some reading and listening to music over a cup o’ java. He’d never been to the D.C. area before, and planned to go into town on Sunday to see the Cherry Blossoms and a few sites. I told him he couldn’t have come at a better time for that — today was the day they were to be at their peak, and I had just seen them on Thursday, and they were good this year (as you can see by these pictures I took on my lunchtime stroll, Thursday).
Our meeting certainly was serendipitous. The last thing I expected to be doing yesterday was having breakfast with a catholic priest. What I really appreciated was, he didn’t try to convert me, and we didn’t get into a debate about religion, at all. We simply talked about life, and life challenges. I do hope we stay in touch. I really liked the guy.
