Signals

Who among us, save the most encrusted materialist, has not longed for a sign--from above, from beyond, really from anywhere but here.

I have a strong conviction that "signs" are all around us, and seeing them is simply a matter of keeping an open mind.

Strangely enough, this week I found three receipts from April 21, my birthday, on three consecutive years: 2010, 2011, and 2012.

The first receipt indicated that my birthday in 2010, found us taking a leisurely drive to Chelan, WA, in the Columbia River wine country, and having a wonderful dinner at Sorrento's, a splendid Italian restaurant. It's hard to believe how we took such things for granted.



Lake Chelan

The second receipt was from a garage in Issaquah--on my birthday in 2011, my car wouldn't start and I took it to this shop to have it repaired. They charged me the extravagant sum of $260 to poke around and replace the battery--which didn't address the real problem in the least. It was in fact a starter problem. But you're paying $75 per hour for expertise, don't you know. I also remember walking four miles to the shop to pick up my car, and having plenty of time to consider my career options, as I had lost my job the day before. That's what I can recall of my birthday, 2011.

The third receipt was from Ivar's, a chain of fish and chips restaurants in Seattle. I drove into town the weekend of my birthday to take care of several tasks, including a trip to IKEA. Every trip to IKEA is a rather surreal adventure. This time, I had a pleasant and extended phone conversation with N & H while walking through the Blue Valley, a quiet, shady courtyard between the two parking garages. It was one of those banal interludes that doesn't seem special at the time, and yet that you'll likely never forget.

Then I drove to Ivar's for fish and chips. I was so busy that I couldn't think of a better place to go--but that's a compliment because I know I always enjoy their food. I also had a nagging headache, and fish and chips is a sure cure.

IKEA's "Blue Valley"

What do I glean from this? Prior to 2011, I was having economic challenges, but my family and economic life was still largely intact. In 2011, the structure of my life had largely fallen apart, and my birthday became the nadir of that drawn-out catastrophe. From that time through 2012, I gradually put my life back together, and had learned to enjoy life's simple pleasures.

Signs are a presumption of the mind

And I'm more careful now not to draw solid conclusions about where my life is headed, based on a few signs. We often misunderstand how events unfold. We fail to understand the difference between "quick" and "sudden." God's action is sudden; everything lines up as necessary, a crisis point is reached, then change happens somewhat catastrophically. But the alignment might take weeks or months or decades, or happen at uneven rates. We expect the relationship of signs and events to be presented in a causal manner, when in actuality they're synchronistic. "Signs" are a subjective presumption of the mind. Instead, we need to open our minds to the subtly and suddenly unfolding.

The mistake we make is that signs are not explanations, but encrypted bread crumbs left along the way. Perhaps we look for signs when we are actually receiving signals.