This is a very small world. There is a concept called "Six Degrees of Separation." It is the idea that people are six or fewer social connections from each other. This coined the phrase "friend of a friend."
The concept was originally set out in a 1929 short story by Frigyes Karinthy. In the story people play a game of trying to connect to any person in the world to themselves by a chain of five others. It was later popularized called "Six Degrees of Separation."
Eventually there was a game called the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. It was invented in a play and the goal was to link any actor to Kevin Bacon to find a movie or commercial they were in together. In 2012 Google set up a search engine designed to apply anyone to Kevin Bacon.
I bring it up because all of us have eerie occurrences where we touch the Six Degrees in someone we meet or somewhere we go.
I'm reminded of the Irish joke. Two men are sitting in a pub (a natural location) drinking their pints. One of them says to the other, "So where are you from?" The first one replies "I'm from Dublin." The other replied Oh my gosh I'm from Dublin also." The first then says "Where did you go to school in Dublin?" The other replied, "St Bonaventure." :Oh , my gosh, I"m from St Bonaventure too."
Meanwhile the bartender is sitting with a customer watching this interplay. He says, It's going to be another long night; the O'Malley boys are comparing lives again." "But aren't they twins?" "It usually takes much of the night for them to remember that!"
So it is in our lives. We meet someone and discover we had connections with them much earlier in our life, It happens in thr middle of nowhere with no warning,
There was a period of time when my first wife and I were returning from two years overseas, We had left Australia and were taking our time traveling across the South Pacific.
We were flying into Tahiti around 2:30 AM on a flight that wasn't full. As we walked into the airport terminal we knew we were in the middle of nowhere, When we landed the flight crew walked down the aisle of the plane spraying aerosol cans of disinfectant to make sure there was no contamination. This included spraying our luggage with huge sprayers, //it made me nervous because I was traveling with my guitar in a soft case. We watched them spray and suddenly she grabbed my arm.
Across from us were some other passengers. My wife pointed an older couple, It turns out he was the pastor from the church she attended growing up, She hadn't seen him in over twenty years. Now here he was in the early morning in the middle of nowhere, She went over to talk to him and had a delightful visit.
I've had a number of events occur like that. I believe they are points to reconnect with others or connect with parts of our life that have slipped into dormancy, It is God reminding ud that everything and everyone is connected,
I lived in Sacramento in the 1960's. I attended school from 6th to 8th grade. In junior high school, I walked to school each morning with mr brother and a friend named Dennis, Dennis lived down the block and we became close friends, But remember we moved every year and a half. So off we moved to Montana for three years. When we got back to the California it was to the central coast. We had been gone for fifteen years, We started college renting my dad's old house, I was at the local grocery store when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was my friend Dennis and we reconnected,
Early in my college days in Sacramento I took a class with 50 people in it. When I walked in on the first day I found an empty seat. We were assigned the seats for the semester. 'After a period of time, I started to talk to the girl in the next chair, We had gone to elementary school together.
O all around you are people the universe has placed in your sphere of life, Many of you don't noticebut the six degrees of separation apply. Be curious and notice! Be curious and mindful of the people around you. They are there for a reason and it involves spiritual growth. Check it out//////////
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