Serendipity

Serendipity does not come from Latin or Greek, but rather was created by a British nobleman Horace Walpole the 4th Earl of Oxford from an ancient Persian fairy tale. The meaning of the word, good luck in finding valuable things unintentionally, refers to the fairy tale characters who were always making discoveries through chance. In a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann, in 1754 Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made about a lost painting of Bianco Cappello by Giorgio Vasari by reference to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes, he told his correspondent, were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.”The name comes from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), hence Sarandib by Arab traders.

The term “serendipity” is often applied to inventions made by chance rather than intent.
On a bird hunting trip, George de Mestral took a closer look at the cockleburs stuck to his pants and dog. Viewed under a microscope, each burr was covered with tiny hooks. The observation led to the invention of the Velcro hook-and-loop fastener. – Wikipedia

Looking up three dictionaries here are some definitions:

Merriam-Webster – the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.
Urban dictionary – A very good coincidence often leading to something really awesome.
Oxford dictionary – the fact of something interesting or pleasant happening by chance.

Here is a good example.
You can thank serendipity if you find a pencil at an empty desk just as you walk into an exam and realize that you forgot yours.

I have given this writing the title Serendipity which I know everyone will agree with but personally I call it God-incidence.

Serendipity – Eagles Wings and God-incidence

It was a Sunday and the day started a little dull but the forecast was for sunny intervals, cloudy and scattered showers which in Scotland means just go out and take a chance. That morning my husband Ron and and I went to the little Episcopal church in Monifieth, Scotland where we had been married 52 years ago

Our son and our grandchildren were fast asleep so we let them sleep as the night before had been a late night. It was a great sermon with lots to ponder on and as we returned to the rental house to pick them up it started to brighten up. We were scheduled to go to Ron’s sisters for lunch and on the way there the grandchildren asked, “Can we go to that stony beach you told us about Grammy. ”I replied in the affirmative but said it would depend on the weather. The place is called Auchmithie , a coastal village near Arbroath. Every time we visit Scotland I want to visit there and I think as I talked about it the grandchildren realized that this was probably a special place.

After a delicious lunch we drove to Auchmithie along some tiny Scottish roads full of twists and turns. As we approached the village it was mid afternoon and the showers had stayed away and the sun was shining. We drove the car into the one and only car park.

The reason for this response was that Isaiah 40:31 is what I always call “Kenneth’s verse.” Our son Kenneth died at the age of 31 in 2009 of mesothelioma.
Isaiah 40:31 is written on his grave, it is on the heart on the bracelet that I never take off, it is on every page of the “Book for Prayers” that is in the chapel of Leonard Morse Hospital where Kenneth died and it was the last thing that he wrote before he died. Isaiah 40-31. I smiled.
Well we went to the beach the sun was brilliant the skies were blue and there was such a Peace there. That was where the “Heart” story came from that I wrote for the ladies who were so kind to my sister while we were on vacation. I entitled it “Stones.”

NOW you may think that that was the end of my serendipity story but it is not!! When I was writing my “Stones” I thought – oh perhaps I can get a picture of the heart stone for my letter. I emailed our son and asked for a photo of his stones that he collected but really meaning the heart one. What he sent me I just could not believe. There at the end of the collection was another stone but this had the shape of a bird with outreached wings. It just looked like the Eagle on the van in Auchmithie. Where did that come from I wondered.

I hastily emailed our son. He told me that his dad had found it and gave it to him just before we left the beach on the Sunday afternoon that we were all there together. This was now a month later and I never knew about this other stone. All I could say again was “Wow.” On reflection now there were many serendipity moments. The sun shone – we saw the van with Kenneth’s verse – a father finds a heart for his daughter and a father finds a precious stone for his son.

Well I ask you was this serendipity, chance, luck or perhaps a little God incidence? I know that for me it was a little touch of Heaven or as the Celtic tradition says “It was a thin place.“

May you keep looking up not down,
May you see beauty instead of despair
May you know the Joy that can be found in the little things
And if you are looking for them
May you you find those thin places.

Heather