Personal Statement

Personal Statement

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Potpourri: God Works in Mysterious - and Utterly Trivial - Ways

I love the movie "L. A. Story." Love Steve Martin, appreciate the dead-on accurate portrayal of Californians and their idiosyncracies. (Disclaimer: my mother's family did not start out in California, but they ended up there, and I lived there twice, once as a preschooler and then again in kindergarten, returning for regular visits until my grandparents abandoned their palm tree-studded golf course community in Walnut Creek for a cactus-studded gold course community in Prescott, AZ. I can testify to the fact that Californians really do get in the car, back out of the driveway, drive one house over and pull into THAT driveway. Well, except in San Francisco. San Franciscans are public transportation-crazy. Wouldn't YOU be public transportation-crazy, if "public transportation" translated into "old school cable cars and super-fast underwater trains"?)

I also love that God speaks to Steve Martin's character through a traffic sign. Because God speaks to me through inanimate objects as well. Every day, I am reminded of the presence of God as a guiding force in my life. And, apparently, God is a micromanager, because He's CRAZY into the details.

For example: I crackled an artificial nail the other night. I went to the bathroom for a nail file and filed it down, but not to an excessive extent. Dropped the nail file into the drawer, and then ran a finger over the tip of the nail. Hmm, still a little rough. Oh, well, close enough for government work. But - if it's rough, it could - and probably would - snag on something (my hair in the shower, an item of clothing), and the little crack would become a chip, and I would have to work in a nail appointment on a day when I really didn't have time for one, but I would HAVE to get it fixed, because a special event was ending said day, and - oh, what to do? I should just get the nail file out again - but I'm tired of filing, and the drawer is such a low one. Involving stooping.

Again, what to do?

Look down, in the direction of the drawer, and there it is - the nail file, laying on the bath rug, because, evidently, when I attempted to drop it in the drawer it glanced off of something and popped out.

Clearly, God thought I should keep filing.

And so I filed.

Later that evening, I found myself humming The Beatles' "Hey Bulldog" - which reminded me that I had intended to download that song from iTunes to share with the eleven year-old wannabe bassist (who really, really likes McCartney's bass line from that song). As I typed in the iTunes URL, it occurred to me that it was really late, and this little project certainly could wait another day.

BOOM - up pops the iTunes welcome page. Which, on this particular evening, featured an image of NONE OTHER THAN THE BEATLES, with a caption suggesting that I download Beatles songs RIGHT THEN AND THERE.

God has many instruments. iTunes is one of them.

Nail files are another.

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