According to my way of thinking there is no such thing as co-incidence.
Everything that happens is for a reason, whether or not we understand the reason at the time, or even much later.
I have some very good friends who find this view a source of “interesting” discussions, so I’m not saying it’s the true way the world works but I do see a lot of evidence supporting it.
For example, last weekend Danita and I were in Melbourne.
The reason we went was for a family wedding but a number of things happened that were mind-blowing in their co-incidence quotient.
Co-incidence quotient (CQ) is the likelihood that an event could have been arranged by human capabilities. Thus, something that has a low CQ would be very easy to arrange while something with a high CQ couldn’t possibly have been arranged.
An example of the low CQ is meeting a person you know, at an event where you share a common interest.
Obviously, given the shared interest, it’s quite likely you’d be at an event together even if you didn’t specifically organise it with each other.
However, if you live in different parts of the country and have no obvious connections then the CQ becomes higher.
And then there are times where the CQ goes into the stratosphere.
Over the weekend I had a few examples of all the above.
The wedding was my cousin’s daughter.
Shortly after we arrived we ran into a friend who we had met at last year’s Jewish New Year which was in October.
We’d met in Launceston and this person lives in Melbourne while we live in Devonport, so there’s no obvious connection between us.
Not only was it surprising that we were at the same function – I was from the bride’s side of the family while he was a friend of the groom’s father (again no obvious connection) – but the pre-arranged seating plan had put him and I next to each other.
I’m presuming that no-one would have known of our connection.
He was as surprised as we were to be seeing each other, and yet of all the people at the function (and there were lots to choose from) we had been placed together.
The other high CQ event was revealed in a conversation with the Rabbi K at the Sabbath service I attended on Saturday morning.
Many years ago (probably 25 at least) I had asked Rabbi K a question about the Jewish attitude to astrology and whether it was something I should be involved with.
In response to my question he had written to another Rabbi, in South Africa, to get a second opinion.
On Thursday night Rabbi K was getting a book off the shelf and the letter he had received in response fell out of the book.
Remember, when this occurred I wasn’t even in Melbourne, as we arrived on Friday, and Rabbi K had no knowledge (indeed, neither did I at that time) that I would be attending services at his synagogue and so there’s no reason why he would be looking up anything specific to me.
Another example was many years ago – January 1977 to be exact.
I was living in the Blue Mountains and working at the University of NSW.
One morning I decided, out of my normal routine, to catch the train after the one I would normally catch.
I had no particular reason for doing so.
As it turned out, my usual train derailed and hit a bridge pylon bring the whole thing down on top of the train.
You may have heard of it – the Granville Rail Disaster.
There were 84 deaths and 213 injuries, mostly in the carriage in which I normally travelled.
We often hear of things like that – flight bookings that mysteriously were changed so the family missed their intended flight and the plane exploded over Lockerbie is one that happened to someone I personally know.
These are the major examples, but how often do things happen that we don’t see the disaster we avoided?
How many times have you turned a corner and not even been aware that had you kept going on your original route you would have been hit by a bus?
This sounds like a crazy question, but when you begin to see, in your own life, those situations which have a high CQ don’t you wonder how that situation came about and who or what pulled the strings or wove the threads?
I do, and the answer is exciting (and maybe just a little scary)!