H.G. Wells said, "At times, in the silence of the night and in rare, lonely moments, I experience a sort of communion of myself with Something Great that is not myself."

I suspect that most of us have experienced something similar to what Mr. Wells described.

With very little prodding, people have shared with me all kinds of interesting and very fascinating occurrences that convinced them that there was more to life than just what we see, hear and taste.

Someone once told me that a coincidence is a miracle where God chooses to remain anonymous. It is a lovely thought that I have returned to on more than one occasion.

Like last Saturday night.

I was reading a novel that referred to a particular painting that I was unfamiliar with but, because of the novelist’s description, I was now very curious to see. I sat and imagined what the picture must look like. I even jotted down the artist and the title intending to look the painting up the first chance I could.

Only the painting beat me to it.

In less than an hour after finishing the novel and forgetting about the painting, I picked up the next book on my "to read" stack. It was a biography of the mythologist, Joseph Campbell. A book totally unrelated to the novel I had been reading and yet, within minutes, I was staring at the very painting I wanted to see from the pages of this new book.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck and I said aloud, "What does this mean?"

One of the most common occurrences, shared by many I have spoken with, happens when we suddenly think of someone we haven’t seen for awhile or someone from the distant past. Often within hours, even minutes, we bump into them or receive a letter from them or the phone rings. Guess who is on the line?

I am not certain what it all means but it reminds me of the time when, in the middle of the night, I was awakened by a ringing phone. I sat up in bed and said aloud, "It is my brother, Norm."

And it was. Which doesn’t sound too extraordinary except that my brother was living on an atoll in Micronesia and had no contact with the outside world for over a year and wasn’t expected to have any for another year. In a series of bizarre circumstances, he found himself in an inhabited place and picked up the phone and dialed his brother for the first time in years.

How did I know it was him? I was operating under the conviction that he would be incommunicado for another 12 months. He was literally the last person I would have thought would call me.

But I knew!

Anytime I share stories like these with friends, the list quickly grows of similar incidents in their lives. We sit and talk and wonder.

Does all this mean that God exists and life is more than a series of synaptic responses?

Perhaps, but it also puts me in mind of another quote. This one from G. K. Chesterton, "Angels can fly," he wrote, "because they take themselves lightly."