Same curtain, different peek

I suppose I am allowed to quote an excerpt from an essay of mine, “Double or Nothing” appearing in the current Gettysburg Review (and hopefully you’ll order one and read the rest):

--I began to feel a distinct deja vu. Suddenly I was transported back to Boston where I lived fifteen years or so earlier. At that time in my life, I practiced a fervent faith that led to serendipitous encounters on a regular basis. God sometimes seemed to lift a curtain on His infinite, overlapping plot lines and let me in on the act. It kept life lively and expectations of the unexpected high. Uncanny occurrences, or “divine appointments,”, as the group I was associated with called them, served to increase the belief that we were participating in a grand tale on a cosmic scale. The “supernatural” intersected the “natural,” which was a totally reasonable occurrence to people in thrall to God.--

A week ago, someone named Stacy posted a comment to my blog. She had just read the above mentioned essay and took the time to google me, find my blog and post her reaction. Nothing pleases a writer more, or this writer anyway, than having someone other than your husband, mother or best friend not only read but give feedback on something you’ve written (not to diminish the responses of spouses, parents and friends but they’re liable to be just a wee bit biased.)

Anyway, that night Anthony (my good friend from my Houston writing group and the one who pioneered our moves to Columbia) and his wife Dyan were over. Anthony had been one of the first readers and critiquers of that essay so I mentioned Stacy’s comments. Come to find out, he knew Stacy. He’d not only met her at the Calvin Conference in Michigan last April but he’d bought her new book there and she’d signed it! Stacy and I have been emailing back and forth ever since.

Then, this morning, I got a new post from Amy, a long lost friend of mine from my Boston days (which are the context for much of my essay). Amy had been at a blog, seen a link to Stacy’s site and gone to check it out. The current post at Stacy’s site linked her to my blog! Amy’s subsequent post was entitled, “Divine Connections or Coincidences...” which, unbeknownst to her, was the subject of my essay. Did you follow all that?