Mysterious Ways. . .

At the age of ten, more than fifty years ago, the Spiritual Adventuress lived in Albuquerque, NM for a year. Her father was stationed at Sandia Base. A career Navy man, stationed right in the middle of the desert??? Hmmmm. . . there’s got to be more to that story. A little internet detective work reveals that in the months leading up to successful detonation of the first atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of Los Alamos Laboratory, began looking for a new site for continuing weapons development, testing and bomb assembly. At what came to be known as “Sandia Base,” (now part of Kirtland Air Force Base) secure facilities were constructed as a primary campus for the forerunner of Sandia National Laboratories with a second location in Livermore, CA. We also lived in Livermore. Coincidence? It's amazing to discover how little you actually know about your parents. It's amazing to discover how little you actually know about your own life. There's also a lot more to New Mexico than meets the eye. What is the connection? Why am I here? Will it remain a mystery?

Over the Christmas holidays, when my son Grant was visiting from California, we stopped for lunch at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center on our way to see the “Sky City,” or Acoma, Pueblo built on top of a 367’ high mesa. “Why are you so interested in the Pueblo Indians?” he inquired. Intrigued by his question, I trust my answer will leave him with one less parental mystery. “When I was ten years old. . . (Oh! And living in New Mexico!), I read a book called Chi-Wee, Girl of the Pueblo, the story of a curious, adventurous, courageous girl, who, like me, had long, dark braids, loved her mother and grandmother, longed for a brother and had no father at home. I didn’t fully understand, until more than forty years later, why I loved that book so much. One of my real estate clients in San Clemente, CA, an attorney, mentioned his favorite childhood book was Chi-Wee, Girl of the Pueblo. I was astonished by our shared connection to and love for the book. I requested it from the library and was able to read it again, discovering the deep resonance in our lives. In a way beyond words, Chi-Wee helped me understand my life. After so many years, she was still alive in my heart. She let me feel the power of story. Now I’ve returned to write.”

"There are no accidents. . . there is only some purpose that we haven't yet understood,"  states Deepak Chopra, author of 65 books and one of the TIME 100 (Most Influential People in the World). Personal experience verifies the truth of his statement. It took more than thirty years for the purpose of a car-accident scar on my forehead to reveal itself. It was an integral part of the healing of Grant’s stage-four melanoma and our journey through it together.

How could a car accident before Grant’s birth prepare me for his illness? Only in an astonishing way. Bill King, yet to become Grant’s father, was driving me to teach school one morning in our metallic-green Oldsmobile Toronado, a large, 4,496 pound, front-wheel-drive car. The day was clear and sunny, the sky blue. We were stopped at a red light, when WHAM!! A school bus from the district I taught in, fortunately empty at the time, rear-ended us, crushing the back half of our car. My eyeglasses flew off my face into the back seat. My head hit the windshield, my forehead split open and blood ruined my brown suede coat. After the impact, I only remember sitting on the curb with my hand on my forehead. From the police report, I later learned the school bus knocked our car one hundred and seventy feet from a dead stop. The car was totaled. I had a concussion accompanied by a terrible headache with a metallic smell. The doctor had me lie flat on my back for nine days. The headache eventually went away, but the inch-long scar on my right forehead remained.

Thirty-five years later, Grant and I met at our favorite breakfast place in downtown Santa Barbara, The Cajun Kitchen. We slid across brown naugahyde bench seats on opposite sides of the booth, a dark-brown formica table top between us. Ice tea and coffee arrived immediately in this place for locals where everyone knows your name and your order. The conversation turned to Grant’s health and treatment. I told him about the car accident and the following story.

“Recently, I noticed an irregular mole growing on my right forehead next to the car-accident scar. It was dark and rough in texture. It began to change size, shape, color. I knew I needed to have it checked. Before I could make an appointment, it disappeared. Disappeared. Not only the mole disappeared, the scar disappeared too. I asked Janet, my writing partner who is a breast cancer survivor, to pray for your healing. She is a devout Catholic, very involved in her church, a person of deep faith. She even takes the eucharist, or communion, to shut-ins in her parish. Janet said she prayed for you to be healed. She told me, ‘I asked the Blessed Mother to give you a sign you could not mistake.’ ”

Reaching across the restaurant table, I took Grant’s hand in mine. Lifting my hair back away from my face, I rubbed his fingers back and forth across my smooth forehead. “It’s gone,” I said to him. “Gone.” And that possibility became a tangible reality for him.

Life works in mysterious ways. Sometimes we have the privilege of seeing its perfection and realizing nothing happens by accident. From our own direct experience, we can learn to trust that everything is always in divine order. . . and to receive a gift of grace, the peace that passes all understanding.