Small World

I was at the Alley (thealley.org) today because it was sunday and where else would anyone would want to be, with the exception of brutal honesty that sometimes on sunday mornings, all I really want to do is sleep.

Anyhow, I was hanging out after our communion meal and went over to talk to a friend about bowling and life in general. And the person who was sitting with my friend asks, "where did you get that sweatshirt?"

Now it's a simple grey sweatshirt that my mom had bought me a few years ago for christmas that says Arlington Heights on it. Nothin to it at all.

I respond, my mom bought it for me...why?

She says, "well, I lived there most of my life."

I say, "Get outta town. (Ok, I'm enhancing the story in my head. THAT would have been a cool pun however I'm not that quick on my feet)

I probably said, "Oh (pause for reflection) cool."

The story would be interesting (maybe only to me) even if I lived in Illinois somewhere but to give you some perspective on just how far from home I am here's a map...
That's roughly 380 miles door to door across one whole state.

It turns out that we both settled here and lived mere blocks from each other our entire life...here's a map to see the perspective:

See now I'd be amazed if the story ended here because really people move from place to place and Arlington Heights has a population of ...a lot. It's a fairly popular suburb of Chicago.

Except...I've had this conversation before...

With Dave, the guy who had the cube next to mine at work and another guy I dated for awhile who also shared they too grew up there...here's their map for perspective. (See map on the below.)

Now my friend Brian would probably say that of course everyone would move to Minnesota, because no one in their right mind would stay in chicagoland but it puts it into serious perspective for me of what a small world we really do live and how occasionally, seemingly out of nowhere we are reminded with a story such as this that our lives intersect through a commonality of community. Sure, I never met these people while living in Illinois, however they knew people who I knew. They probably walked in Randhurst mall. They probably begged their mom to ride their bike to baskin robbins downtown or the white hen pantry or 7-11 for a slurpee. (Okay that shows you that pretty much beggin my mom had usually something to do with going to get cold food somewhere.)

We really are connected in one Kingdom - God's. But for reasons beyond anyone's understanding, sometimes that world becomes a whole lot more familiar. For a moment and through a lifetime paths intersect and cross and we carry quite familiar stories.

And really I never would have known any of this if I had worn something else to church today than my old grey sweatshirt.