The Unexplainable
Things that I have been reminded of while listening to *The Telepathy Tapes* Podcast
If you have read my posts, you will have read of a few of the recent times in my life where something so oddly improbable or eerily coincidental has served as a context for very meaningful moments in my life. “The Fort Worth Blues” and “Can’t Make This Up”. Those moments were so profound and so meaningful that they were easy to write about. Furthermore, my view of God’s sovereignty and involvement in creation gives plenty of room for meaningful reflection and celebration of divine provision (Providence) and God’s care for his sheep (me in this case).
What I have not addressed are the other times in my life that I have noted things that defy explanation. They seem to take place in realms that we do not normally experience. Maybe they are realms that we dismiss, avoid, or cannot experience simply by the limits of our fallenness.
I will preface this by anonymously quoting a friend who I think wisely said it this way.
“We should be more honest. We believe stuff about the world that is downright crazy to any “sane” mind. Starting with the fact that we posit an entirely different realm called heaven that exists, coextensive with ours, where God and all of our departed exist. It would be more surprising if things like this weren’t regularly blowing our minds.”
Having recently listened to quite a bit of the podcast called “The Telepathy Tapes1” I am reminded of a few events that made me wonder if there was some kind of energy that we could sense without fully knowing it.
I am not claiming some sort of special sight, or ANYTHING like that, I am simply expressing what I am sure many of us think, feel, or experience, but do not have a category or reason to express them. Sometimes you are not surprised to learn something that there is no way that you could have already known. These are simply examples of instances of feeling like I knew something before I saw it.
1. When I was in middle and high school there was a referee that officiated so many of our games. He had a mustache and somehow, we all knew that his name was “Phil”. He was probably a good guy, but as a ref, we always loved to resent him and assume that he was always against us. I was at the outlet malls in Destin with my family one summer (if you know you know). I saw a guy that I thought was Phil (I whispered to my brother, “is that Phil the ref?”). When I got closer, it wasn’t Phil… for sure was not him. Within an hour I saw another guy that reminded me of Phil, though I did not for a second think it could be him. I just thought, “Ha, another slightly balding-mustache-guy with a Phil-the-ref vibe”
At the third store we visited, I was in line with my mom as I saw in her eyes that she recognized someone behind me. I turned around. It was Phil, he either recognized me and my brothers enough from so many times in our school gym, or he just knew that by our age and shape that we must recognize him from his position. My mom made small talk. Something like, “well, I guess we only ever see you at basketball games (validating that we all knew how we knew each other), how are you? Are y’all just on vacation?” (just friendly southern small talk). Had I felt the Phil-the-Ref vibe the whole day because he was there? I thought I saw him because somehow I felt him? Who knows?
2. Over Thanksgiving break a few years ago, my brother and I were in the grocery store (at the beach again). I saw a tall blonde lady that I thought somewhat resembled the wife of one of my close friends from college. We hadn’t spoken in years, I had no reason to be thinking of him, and this certainly was not his wife. She was just a lady that for some reason seemed to remind me of Kevin’s wife. I did not give it another thought as we walked out into the parking lot. I heard a voice over my shoulder, “Is that Tim Shaw?” I instantly recognized the voice, because well, I had just thought about Kevin 10 minutes ago in the store. He saw and recognized my younger brother and then noticed me walking up behind him. Nothing inconceivable, just weird.
3. Within the past 2 or 3 years my wife and I saw an ad for a very cool piece of luggage. It was the rugged waxed canvas and leather style that we always thought was cool but was usually WAY more than we would be willing to spend. The ad said $59 down from $399 (or something like that). On the spot she said “Do you just want me to get you this for Christmas? This can be your gift, I’ll order it right now.”
“Sure,” I said. And right there from the passenger seat she purchased this bag. Or so we thought. This must have been late summer or early fall, because the uncharacteristic impulse-buy combined with the circumstances and the time on the calendar, we never thought about it again. So much so that, I got something else for Christmas. The holidays came and went and we travelled here and there with the same old duffels and suitcases to different places.
On the way home from some spring or summer vacation (maybe 8-10 months later), I thought,
“Why didn’t we order that bag when we had the chance?”
“or did we order it?”...
Did Marianna put it on top of the closet with the other gifts and we forgot about it?
That kind of thing happens often.
Maybe this was one of those times when you thought you completed an internet purchase but it never really went through, or maybe we got scammed… some algorithm banner ad for a bag that had no doubt reached our screen based on our styles and shopping habits… maybe we got “GOT” –
I mean the exact style of bag that we wanted was for sale for 85% off. Maybe they just scammed us for $59 and we were just going to have to take it.
Out of curiosity, Marianna began scouring her emails for receipts, order confirmations, tracking numbers, anything. We were sort of bummed, but also laughed about how crazy it was that we had completely forgotten that we had ever ordered it.
What made me think of it? The luggage in our car? Something else that I saw? Who knows?
When we pulled into our driveway, there was a box sitting on our front step. As surely as my hands rest on this worn out Macbook keyboard, there sat the box containing the bag that had come to our mind on the trip home. I would say that we had thought about that bag for 20 total minutes in our lives, the 10 that it took to order it, and the 10 that we spent eight months later to look for a proof of purchase, as we drove home from vacation.
And there it sat in a cardboard box. According to the postage markings, it had been delivered that very morning, while we were discussing it.
I am sure that lots of people have stories like this. I am not sure what to do with them, but I have obviously kept them in my mental storyteller file.
https://thetelepathytapes.com/ is the website for this podcast which produces way more questions than it answers but was certainly a compelling listen.