The Wonder of Mere Coincidence

A couple weeks ago, my husband and I were driving up to my mother’s house and we were admiring the mountains.  I see them every day, but I never stop being in awe of how beautiful they are.  I remarked, “I love the mountains.”

Then, I started singing a song we used to sing in chorus to warm up, “I love the mountains.  I love the rolling hills.  I love the flowers.  I love the daffodils.  I love the fireside, when all the lights are low.  Boom-dee-ah-da, boom-dee-ah-da, boom-dee-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da.”  We had a laugh.  (Yes, I am totally cheesy.)

Then a couple of days later, I saw a video called “We love xkcd” (which I do), posted at the blog Pharyngula.  It is sung to that same tune.

I hadn’t heard that song in years upon years and days after I sang it, I heard the same tune.

Coincidences like that happen all of the time.

Last Friday, my mom took my two older boys to see “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” and I stayed home with my 6-year-old.  I watched “Reality Bites” on HBO for the first time since the mid-90s.  I love that scene when they are dancing in the convenience store to “My Sharona.”

Well, a few days later, Althouse had a post saying that Doug Fieger, lead singer for The Knack, died, with a video of, wait for it… “My Sharona.”

Another song-related coincidence.  Creepy!

Actually, coincidences like that happen all of the time.  There is nothing creepy about it.  But when I was a Christian, that sort of thing was always taken as a “sign” from God.

I actually decided on a church because the choir was singing my favorite song from Christian radio on the day we went to visit.  Seriously.  It was “Indescribable,” by Chris Tomlin.  I thought it was a sign from God that we had found the right church.

Now that I no longer view every event from the point of view that God is micromanaging my life, I can see that there are odd coincidences all of the time.  There’s really nothing supernatural involved.  It was perfectly within the realm of probability that the church would be singing a song that was popular on Christian radio at that time.  In fact, that was frequently the case.

It amazes me how much meaning people assign to random events.  Everything happens for a reason, the saying goes.  No, it really doesn’t.  Well, yeah, everything has a cause, but there isn’t some greater cosmic reason that I heard the same tune twice in one week, or my mom called just when I was thinking of her, or even that Bob (my husband) and I just happened to start at the same company on the same day.  Those events are not the result of divine providence; they just happen.

I used to think that attitude removed all of the mystery and wonder from life.  I was wrong.  I was wrong about a lot of things.  Life is still full of wonder.  I still said, “Wow, that was cool; I was just singing that song” when I heard that xkcd song.  I just don’t assign any greater meaning to it.  And I still think it’s amazing that Bob and I just happened to both start at the same company on the same day and totally hit it off, and still be together 11 years later.  I just don’t think that God created us to be together, or had anything to do with us meeting.

All of the chance encounters and interesting coincidences are no less fascinating without the supernatural cause.  They might even be more so because they just happened randomly, yet turned out great.  I don’t need belief in god to appreciate the wonder of mere coincidence.