The conversation had turned, and God was to show me that the world was small and about to get smaller.
A vendor and I were at a breakfast meeting to review outstanding items for a recent project. We knew only a little bit of personal information about each other, keeping to business tasks during the two year high-pressure project. This meeting day was different: it was at a diner and it involved food. Conversation was a luxury not to be missed. Before we got to business, she shared a little about her weekend, which included visiting a restaurant near the neighborhood I had grown up in. Coincidentally, so had she.
Stepping outside my comfort zone, I told her that when I was very young I attended a church up the street from where she lived. To my astonishment, she share that her grandfather had been the Priest at that church. When she told me his name, I said I knew that Priest from the parish where I attended in my elementary through college years. “Yes, that’s him” was her reply; he moved from one parish to serve at the other.
I shared that her grandfather was one of the reasons I was a Postulant for the Ordained Ministry. I told her stories about his pastoral ministry and how he helped many people. She was grateful to hear them: it was Valentine’s Day; he had died years ago and she missed him.
We were remarking at how small the world was. Then she shared that she, too, had attended that parish. Somehow her age popped into the conversation, and I did the math. To my astonishment, I realized that when I was in high school, she had been one of my Third Grade Sunday School students. We were both taken aback at how, after over 30 years, our paths had reconnected.
A wonderful God in the Ordinary Moment: God took two people who knew each other only in a professional sense, to show the both of us how small the world was, and how much we have in common. We only had to step outside our comfort zones and share.
© Diane L. Neuls DeBlasio 2012
Seeing God in the Ordinary 