Life on Easy Street
When we consider the Earth as our mother and ourselves as interconnected and interdependent with each other, we start experiencing the Universe conspiring in our favor. When we surrender our ego to the flow of the Universe and engage with its impulses without complaining, comparing, criticizing, and struggling, our lives will feel like being on easy street.
Let me tell you a story.
In 2010 I had a knee surgery. Ten days after my surgery, I had to drive to Faith Christian Church in Hollywood, Florida. I had a heavy wrap around my knee, making bending it very uncomfortable. Applying the brake was the hardest. I wished I could press cruise control and drive non-stop. There is no way you can do that on a busy road like University Drive in South Florida. There are 37 traffic signals from Riverside Drive to Stirling Road and stopping at even half of them would stress my knee.
So, I prayed for continuous green lights, and put my car on cruise control at 45 miles an hour.
After passing Southgate Blvd., I was excited because the next two lights were green. I said to myself, I will have to stop at Commercial Blvd., which is a busy intersection, but I went through without stopping, and again through the next two major intersections. I couldn’t believe my luck. Before the first stop, I had an 8-mile stretch of continuous driving, going through 20 green lights, which had never happened in my 25 years of driving on that road. I preached about my miraculous experience during the sermon that day.
When I returned home, I posted on Facebook:
When we are in harmony with the Universe and with humanity, all our prayers are answered.
Next day, I got a comment from Elliot, one of my Facebook friends, who is a City Planner.
He wrote: “Paul, the Lord works in mysterious ways; this month University Drive was one of the first 2 streets to get its signals synchronized, because you needed it now.” And he sent me a link to the County website which had the following notice:
Broward County is improving traffic flow through our “Green Lights Program,” to coordinate traffic signals along our major streets. We will be re-timing our most frequently traveled roadways over the next several months according to the Green Lights Program schedule. Drivers traveling along streets where signal re-timing is in effect will experience fewer delays and more green lights.
They just started the program a month prior to my surgery, and University Drive was one of the first two streets to get the benefit. It was as if the Universe was aligning with University Drive! I needed an easy drive that Sunday morning and the Universe blessed me with it.
God blessed me through the efforts of the people at the County Traffic Division.
This is how my God (Universe) works. You might call it “pure coincidence” and it may very well be, but I like to call it “God-incidence” or as Albert Einstein says: “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
Another comment I received on my Facebook page accused me of trivializing God by dragging Him down to the street level, to the ordinary role of a traffic controller. The assumption behind that statement is the false notion that God is this Supreme Being and we should not associate Him with mundane stuff like driving, cooking, eating or doing laundry.
Exiling God from the Earth and placing Him on a throne above the clouds is a spiritual tragedy. Experiencing a God (Universe) getting involved in the most mundane aspects and activities of your life is salvation Now!
(from Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life)
