Meaning in Coincidence

It's funny, today I was having one of those deep metaphysical debates. I was saying how I felt like the things we do matter because everything is connected, and that otherwise, if everything is relative and arbitrary, then nothing we do matters.

Then on my way home as I was waiting for the bus, this guy comes up to me and asks if I know where the Hotel Du Fort is. He's slurring his wrods (heh visual pun), his eyes are bloodshot, and his breath smells of alcohol. I tell him I'm sorry, I don't know where it is. He asks me for a cigarette, I say I don't smoke. He says thanks anyways, and he goes to walk off. I stop him, ask him if he's okay.

He tells me he's from Boston, and that he was out drinking, got separated from his friends, and is lost. He's trying to find his hotel. He's obviously drunk, and is not wearing a jacket, even though it's snowing pretty hard. I don't want him to walk off, I'm afraid to let him go. I try to get him a cab, but he won't take my money. Finally, I turn to the person next to me in line, and ask if they know where the hotel is. They point me in the general direction, say it's 4 blocks away.

So I tell the guy, look I'll walk you there. He says no, but I insist. I'm afraid if I don't, he's gonna walk into traffic. So I walk about 3 blocks, and I'm a little worried myself, cuz I have no idea where this hotel is either, and I'm not sure if the person who gave me directions was just trying to get rid of us.

So I stop and ask directions again. The guys I ask tells me it's just a little bit further, then take a left. So we keep walking, at this point I'm asking this guy a few questions to pass the time. Turns out he came down here with friends from Boston, Massachusetts for his Spring break, cuz the drinking age here is lower. They went to Dundees, then to some strip clubs, and somewhere along the way, he got shitfaced, and something happened that separated him from his friends.

He tells me all this, surprisingly coherent despite slurring his words and apologes profusely,
thanking me for helping him out. I tell him it's no big deal, and I mean it, how could anyone let someone just walk off in that condition?

As we're walking, he almost walks into the street a few times, and I have to watch him carefully. Anyways, eventually we find the hotel, I tell the attendant at the desk what happened, wait to make sure he gets up to his room, then tell him to be careful next time, and go on my way.

So why did I tell you this story? Because I'm trying to say how great I am? No, I don't think I'm any better than anybody else, and I hope, that most people would do the same if they were in a similar situation.

So what's my point? Just this: let's say things don't happen for a reason, don't you find it just a little weird, that right after I finish having a conversation about helping other people, why I believe in God, and everything happening for a reason, I just happen to arrive at the bus stop just as this guy is walking towards that corner.

Now it's possible that somebody else would have stopped to help this dude, but then again it's the big city, and plenty of things don't get done that should. My friend was knocked down and hurt quite badly, to the point where she had to wear crutches, by people rushing from one metro to the next. After they knocked her down and basically trampled her, nobody even stopped to see if she was okay.

So yeah it's possible no one would have helped this guy if I hadn't been there, and maybe someone would have, who knows. What I'm saying is, isn't just a little weird that one of the few people who would feel compelled to help him, happened by right when he was passing where I catch the bus? If i'd left the school earlier, (I usually do, I catch the 10:30 bus or the 11:00) I probably would have missed him, but this time I ended up staying a little later, something I never usually do, and happened by just as he was exactly where I catch my bus. By being there at that time, I got to share in that moment, and he was potentially kept from harms way.

I'm sure people will tell you that you can read meaning into whatever you want, and
that coincidences are bound to happen eventually, but I've seen too much stuff like this, too often, stuff that just seems too ordered, too systematic, to not be part of a greater plan. At this point, it would take more faith and rationalization for me not to believe in this explanation than it would to accept the posibility that maybe there's more to life than just a random series of meaningless events.

Now I'm not trying to say either, that only someone who believes the same way I do would have helped this guy, nor do I think what I did was so great. To me it was the only choice I could make. But I know plenty of people who are athiests or agnostics who would have done the same. My point isn't that you need God to be compassionate (although I definitely think feeling a connection to your spiritual nature, a connection to God can help, otherwise why would I believe in it?). My point is, that to me this sort of thing shows evidence of a compassion based universe, where everyone matters, everyone is connected, and even seemingly random and insignificant occurences in our day to day lives are part of an infinitely complex tapestry of causality and design.

Matt X