I have experienced this sense of events arranging themselves “just for me” on a much smaller scale: I arrive, cold and wet, at a bus stop, and less than a minute later a bus also arrives — with an empty seat, just for me! And I’m out of the rain and on my way home, and grateful.

I find the sense of “just for me” both captivating and dangerous. If I enjoy it and go no further with it, it feeds into a “spirituality of privilege” that can leave me entranced with my own specialness. If I receive it with gratitude and turn it outward with intention, it becomes a prayer for the needs and pains of people who are living in the midst of violence, distress, and/or fear. This is their universe too, and if I’m in a position to experience its benevolence, then I owe them at least my awareness. (Also my seat, if they happen to get on my bus.)

Deeply grateful for Julie’s reflection, which took me right back to many summers spent family-camping in “God’s country,” primitive campsites in the California Sierras (the High Lakes Basin in Plumas County). Amazing how quickly one can change pace and expectations for everything — grooming, cooking, awareness of environment; amazing how enormous the quiet is, while filled with life in all shapes and sizes. Nature “lets herself go” and we all gasp in admiration; that same extravagant, transparent candour ought to be admired in humans as well. Especially if it gives us the same kind of spacious, life-filled quiet inside.