Interconnectedness or coincidence

Perhaps the thing that attracts me most to paganism is the interconnectedness of everything in nature. There needs to be no interpretation.

However, sometimes interconnectedness is another form of coincidence and extends to who we meet, where and how.

My Geneva neighbour left a pile of books for me to donate to the library. Not having time before i left, I did grab one Marquis by George Millar, a memoir of his advantages as a Brit fighting with the French resistance during WWII. I took it to Argelès to share with my friend Barbara (and yes I plan to take it back to Geneva to give to the library when I go home next month.)

Today I was working in her store while she was in Barcelonawith her visiting daughter and grandson. An elderly man came in. “You aren’t Barbara.” I already knew this and had much the same feeling when I used to answer the phone and the caller who wanted another member of the household would say, “No one is home?” Then I wanted to say "You are talking to a recording," and this time I resisted saying "I'm not, I thought I was." I am glad I resisted.

“I have something to show her,” he said. Then he looked at me. “Are you the friend who read Marquis?”

I nodded.

He brought out a black scrapbook larger than any coffee table book that was about two inches thick out of the reusable blue bag that grocery stores sell so we won't waste so many plastic bags when we pack our purchases. Inside he had pasted stories about WWII heroes, mostly obituaries that he confessed was one of nine such books. He turned the page to the obituary of George Millar. Next to it was a first day cover, stamp and all, signed by Millar. I don’t want to go into the possible connections between Geneva, England, Besancon during the war, a small French village and a person who met the author of the book and a person who came across the book by chance. I just assume it makes sense if you take interconnectedness and coincidence into consideration.

He entrusted the book to me while he went to have his hair cut. I found myself crying. Each page told a story of incredible bravery, risk taking and belief in something beyond the person. There were men, women, Poles, Czechs, Brits, Canadians, Americans. There were stories of the resistance, prisoners of war, hospitals and pilots. I knew had these men and women not existed and did what they did while I was still in diapers, I could not have lived the comfortable life I am living today.