Or, is synchronicity simply a chance encounter caused by the number of possibilities available to us by circumstance?

And, there is another option: is there a Divine guidance involved – one that brings our attention to a synchronistic event and says: here is an opportunity – what are you going to do with it?

If Divine guidance (the third option) creates a synchronistic event through suggestion, inspiration, the collective unconscious, how would we know? And is the Divine Spirit trying to control us or do we still have free will?

Depending upon a person’s belief system, the Divine is the entire cosmos, one Divine being, the Holy Trinity (as Catholics believe), multiple gods (Hinduism), or no gods (Buddhism). For example, Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest, believed that Divine guidance was available to people through what we read, nature, other people, and the events in our lives. He often was aware that the messages he received in these areas were aligned with his prayers, a problem he was having, or a decision he needed to make and the answer was delivered. However, he did not use the term “synchronicity” – he used the term “grace” to describe what happened.

Many people pray for Divine guidance on how to live their lives and what decisions to make. The years of bumping into walls and falling into ditches have taught me to turn to the Divine and “read my life”: What is nature telling me? Have I read anything that speaks to my current circumstances? Has anyone in my life said something that gets my attention? What events are transpiring around me that tell me more?

Sometimes, grace is being delivered through the voice of nature, the books and articles we read, the people in our path, and the events happening around us. Our job is to listen to the inner voice we carry within us to discern the message

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I confess that I am not smart enough nor am I talented enough to have the life I currently enjoy. I also confess that nobody handed it to me – there is no spouse or ex-spouse who endowed me with riches, no parents who left me an inheritance, and, nope, no lottery winnings either. I had nothing to do with my genetic inheritance of a strong healthy body and a slow but reliable ability to learn.

In spite of my best efforts to doom myself to failure with some seriously bad decision-making and risky behaviors, I have ended up looking back on decades of survival with only one clear truth: I had help even when it was invisible.

Solutions and paths to support me appeared throughout my life – little coincidences and synchronicities that I thought I had made happen all by my little self. It wasn’t until I wrote my memoir (seeking a publisher as we speak) that I discovered I didn’t have anything do with those either.

Divinely driven circumstances caused me, for instance, to quit smoking, which also caused me to quit a job I hated which then helped me make the decision to return to college and ultimately complete my degrees which then led to a career that lasted 27 years. I had used smoking to cope with that job for eight years . . . what would have happened to me if I had not quit smoking?

Over a dozen other occurrences in my life have directed, helped, supported, and ultimately shown me that normal everyday moments have huge impact. Smoking had been a common occurrence in my life. Within a few months, not smoking became a common occurrence. We are connected in our daily moments, and the Divine is speaking to us – we just have to listen. The Great Spirit did not “make” anything happen for me – I still had to do the work that the circumstances presented for me (Spirit did NOT write any of those term papers or sit for the graduate entrance exam).

There were still tragedies, loss, and sorrow along the way and hard decisions for me to make. What I know now is that I don’t have to wait for tragedy or catastrophe to strike. I can listen even while washing the dishes. It is my Divine inheritance.

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