In God We Trust

Saturday, May 20, 2006 ~ Louisville, Colorado

Two events, each reminding me how important it is to trust the divine flow that is always at play in my life, regardless of what I try to figure out....

#1
Two weeks ago, I was in Oceanside, California, about 40 miles north of San Diego. As you read in my previous post, it's a favorite place of mine...or, at least, the pier is.

My plan had been to stay in Southern California and write my screenplay. A place to do that had materialized suddenly and synchronistically... then dissolved just as quickly.

Yet, even before my plan fell apart, I was feeling a pull toward Colorado. And once that particular California locale wasn't happening, I booked a week's private writing retreat at Sunrise Ranch, a retreat center north of Denver run by the Emissaries of Divine Light.

My new plan was to spend a few days in Sedona with my daughter, some time in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and the week leading up to Memorial Day at Sunrise. From there, I expected to return to California via Santa Fe and Sedona.

I was sitting in a cafe in Albuquerque last weekend, flipping through the city's alternative weekly, when I happened upon an ad for something called The Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe - taking place when? You guessed it: pretty much the same post-retreat dates I had planned to spend in Santa Fe.

I have since registered, and I'll be there.

It would have been easy dismiss the call to leave California for Colorado. There are plenty of retreat centers on the coast, including another run by the Emissaries.

I didn't have to drive 1,350 miles at today's gas prices, just to write in peace.

But I did.

Had I not, I would have missed the conference opportunity and whatever arises from it.

#2
I'm at the brand-new Apple Store in nearby Broomfield this morning, having my keyboard replaced. As the technician works on my laptop, I overhear the fellow next to me talking intently to Apple's support center on his cell phone.

"The name is Gerson," he says. "Miles Gerson."

My jaw drops.

Gerson is not a common name. It's unlikely he's a relative. There are more Gersons out there who are not family than who are. And none, to my knowledge, is in the U.S.

Still, what are the odds of me sitting next to another M. Gerson in an Apple Store in north Denver?

Here's the crazy part: I wait to talk to him, to introduce myself. But his crisis call to Apple lasts longer than I feel comfortable hanging around. Eventually, I leave, with him still on the phone.

I know the encounter is meaningful. Yet 12 hours later, my mind has come up with nothing other than the fact that his name is Miles and I've traveled tens of thousands of them. You know: Miles Gerson.

Fact is, I don't have to understand what it means. Perhaps I'll learn later on, as I did with the call to come to Colorado. Perhaps I never will.

All I can do is surrender to that divine flow, to trust the God Source that guides me...to get out of my own way...in my writing as in my life.