Thursday, February 28, 2008

star trek synchronicity

Strange how these things happen. Almost as if someone's trying to tell me something.

I was in the locker-room at the gym yesterday and this cute guy I often see came in. We always say hello when we see each other but I don't know much about him. He said "Hi," and I told him, "you've shaved." noticing that the mustache he usually wears was gone. He said, "Yeah and my head, too." as he lifted off his cap to show me. He said he had done it for a job. I said, "Acting?" and he said "Yes." A little later I heard him talking to someone on his cell phone and he mentioned that he had just gotten a role on Star Trek.

That night I was teaching a theology class at church. The class was sharing their homework which was to write personal mission statements and the first person to share made the joke. "Well the first thing I thought of was, "To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before."

Today I met with a spiritual direction client. He told me it was his birthday. I asked if he was going to do anything fun to celebrate and he said he already had. He had gone with his friends to a touring version of the Star Trek experience down in Long Beach. Apparently he's a big fan. He even had two small models of the star trek ships in his office which I don't remember ever having seen before.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is so odd; I wonder why things happen like that sometimes. Just coincidence? Some people say there's no such thing, but then ... what other "reason" could there be?

Robin Edgar said...

Strictly speaking those events do not count as true synchronicity. Synchronicity is meaningful "coincidences" and for two or more events to be a true "coincidence" they have to occur at pretty much the same time. If the "coincidental" events do not occur within minutes or even seconds of each other I am not sure that they can be considered to be what Carl Gustav Jung called synchronity. OTOH this does not mean that strings of events spread over a few days or even weeks and months do not hold some meaning. That being said, I do believe that when bona fide synchronicity "meaningful coincidences" do occur Someone may indeed be trying to tell you something. . .

Rick Hoyt-McDaniels said...

Of course Star Trek is a pretty popular show and is part of our cultural consciousness. Everybody laughed when the woman in my theology class quoted the opening line of the show because we all know it, and many of us are fans. So I don't put undue stock in these kinds of events, but if you do believe, as I do, in the existence of a universal wisdom source then we need to be sensitive to the ways it tries to speak to us. Although potentially it speaks to us constantly in all things I find it helpful for my own purposes to notice the little episodes of special communication I notice from tiem to time.

Robin Edgar said...

No arguments there Rick. I would say we are pretty much on the same wavelength about that. It is just a question of how much "stock" to invest in such "little episodes". In this particular case I would not attribute *too* much significance to these events precisely because Star Trek is a pretty popular show and is part of our cultural consciousness. The odds against this series of evemts are not all that high.

It really is necessary to do some filtering and apply some discernment to synchronicity. Even when it is a truly spectacular meaningful "coincidence" that defies all odds the actual meaning of the meaningful "coincidence" may be open to some interpretation. If you would like to discuss this further just let me know as synchronicity is something that I can speak about with authority born out of experience.

Best Regards,

Robin Edgar