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IT'S NOT THAT SMALL A WORLD
By beanerywriters(11,675)
We welcome today's visitor writer, The Rev. Monte W. Holland. He composed the following journal page during a trip he and his wife, Carolyn, took to New England in 2003, following his retirement as a United Methodist Church pastor. One of my tenants said, “It’s a small world,” after I related to her a few of our experiences on a New England trip Carolyn and I shared. Later I thought to myself, “No! It’s a world in which God brings some real surprises to remind us that He is still in charge, that ‘Behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above his own,’ as James Russell Lowell wrote in a familiar hymn.” The surprising events---let me tell you a few, starting with the most amazing situation. A year ago Carolyn sent out a note to the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church, letting them know I was available for guest or fill-in preaching during our vacation. Rev. Karen Munson, pastor of the Readfield: Torsey Memorial United Methodist Church in Readfield, Maine, responded. I preached in this small community northwest of Augusta on September 7. Near the beginning of worship, during a greeting time, I went to the congregation from the pulpit side and Karen went from the lectern side. Soon she came over to me. “You need to come over here and meet someone,” she said. Elma Wilson Poole had recognized my name during the announcements. She told Karen we’d attended school together in DeKalb, NY, at the District 11 one-room schoolhouse. I was shocked. She’d recently married Gordon Poole, a DeKalb Junction native who’d lived in Maine since 1960. Was this a chance meeting or was God in the midst of it all? We made the most of it by joining the Poole’s at the Litchfield Fair, followed by dinner. Thanks be to God for wonderful surprises like “bolts out of the blue!” The second experience occurred enrout home. During the summer we stayed at a number of motels, cottages, cabins, etc. In rural Maine, in a little community called Liberty, is the Cozy Pines Campgrounds. The couple that run it are retired from the Navy. We stayed there three different times, since the price was right for their waterless sleeping cabins, some with stove, refrigerator and dishes (still no water). Carolyn, especially, had got acquainted with them on our stays. On our way home we stayed two days in Newport, Rhode Island researching some of Carolyn’s 1600’s ancestors. While at the visitor center, we parked in an adjacent parking garage. A car pulled up beside us and the man kept staring surreptitiously at us, making Carolyn uncomfortable. After a few minutes he rapped Carolyn’s window. It was the owners of Cozy Pines. They’d parked exactly beside us and recognized us. Was it a coincidence that our paths crossed again without either of us knowing the other was to be there? Or was God smiling in the shadows, as he brought us one more surprise? God wasn’t done yet. I had preached at the Southport (Maine) United Methodist Church on my recent Mexico mission study trip. Dana, the pastor, told me I was missing out on meeting two parishioners from Texas who frequently visit Mexico. Enroute home we pulled into our motel parking place. A truck was parked there; attached to it was a trailer holding a new Thunderbird. The owners, who held a cute, little dog that Carolyn stopped to admire, told her they spend summers at Southport. Carolyn said she’d walked the beach there and I’d preached at Southport United Methodist Church. This was the couple Dana said we’d missed meeting. Another coincidence? My statistical mindset says, “No!” What do you think? | |
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Posted to ProBlogs.com on Monday, January 01, 2007
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