First Parish Unitarian UniversalistSerendipity
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
November 6, 2005
Reflection on Serendipity by Larry (adapted for publication)
“In my lifetime I’ve had several experiences of “serendipity” – enough so to wonder if life itself is not a serendipitous event.
Here is one example which requires 3 pieces of background information:
Piece 1: My grandmother died in February of 1989. I gave the eulogy at her funeral. Doing so was an act of love and defiance. I knew that the person delegated by custom in my family for funeral duty would give a eulogy that would not speak at all about my grandmother – only about the misery of life here on earth. That was certainly NOT the life my grandmother lead and I was not about to have anyone dishonor her memory. At that time in my life I was very fearful of public speaking. Her eulogy was my first and probably most successful public speaking engagement. However, I was frustrated because I could not locate the beautiful tablecloth, which she had once crocheted as a housewarming gift for my ex-wife and me, so it might be on display during the service. I borrowed a similar one from my cousin.
Piece 2: When I was growing up the C family lived across the street. The family consisted of Mr.& Mrs. C and their four daughters. Mr. C was a kind and talented man. In exchange for washing and waxing his car he canned the seats on my prize possession – a vintage 1935 Old Town Canoe. He always spoke quietly and reassuringly to me. He gave me books and tools related to the things that he knew I was interested in. I did not understand it then, but he was like a surrogate father for me. Among his many hobbies, Mr. C was a collector and repairer of antique clocks – one of which he gave me as a gift. It required precise placement on the mantle and weekly winding. It was always a challenge to get the clock properly positioned so it would run after each winding. Mr. C died in December of 1993. True to the song “my grandfather’s clock” it stopped running that very month. Try as I might, I could not find that exact position on the mantle necessary for the clock to work.
Piece 3: My partner, Tim, died of AIDS in March of 1994. Although somewhat dysfunctional in their own Irish Catholic kind of way, Tim’s family was there to support us. I mean they were really THERE. In the weeks leading up to his death our little house in Quincy always had at least 2-4 members of his family present to help – 24 hours a day. Without them, we could never have fulfilled Tim’s wish to die at home. The day after Tim died the house was eerily quiet and empty – now occupied only by our dog Spike and me.
Now for serendipity…
Tim’s sister, Ellen, phoned and asked me to bring some photos to put on display at the funeral home. To locate them, I had to dig really, really deep into Tim’s closet. I unearthed some good photos along with some other interesting objects which I had never before seen and need not be itemized here. Hanging at the far end of the clothes hook, I found my grandmother’s tablecloth – neatly folded and placed on a hanger inside a clear plastic bag. I thought to myself – I think Tim and my grandmother just met.
Later that day I was pleasantly surprised by a familiar sound coming from the living room. The clock on the mantle was happily chiming out the hour. Oh-Oh, I thought – and now Tim has met Mr. C!
These little coincidences helped me get through the funeral home visiting hours and the funeral itself. I was never much of a believer in some sort of existence after death. Now, I think I am.”
Sermon
When something lucky and surprising happens to us by chance, we may call it “serendipitous.” Hopefully, that’s not all the attention the event gets from us. If, in haste to move on, we fail to feel due-gratitude, will we miss a lot of the best that life has to offer—good rich stuff: like learning, meaning, and opportunity.
The original meaning of the word “serendipity” is not as superficial as the usual “happy accident” connotation it gets in normal parlance. In fact, the man who coined the word gave its definition as “that quality which, through good fortune and sagacity [which means wisdom] allows a person to discover something good while seeking something else.” So, yes, there’s good fortune involved, but by this definition, serendipity is a quality or faculty we can develop; it’s not just a matter of chance. And to have that quality, we have to have a sense of direction we care about or a good intention and be wise about pursuing it.
As you may know, a British author Horace Walpole coined the word “serendipity” in 1754, from the title of an ancient Persian tale, “The Three Princes of Serendip,” Serendip being a former name of Sri Lanka. That’s the tale I decided not to tell in full as our Reading earlier this morning, so I’d have time to tell more of the true-life serendipity stories I heard from you.
But, let me just briefly give you the gist of the first part of “The Three Princes of Serendip.” A ruler sent his three sons out on a quest for wisdom in life. On their way, they met a man coming the other way who asked, “Have you seen my camel?” They hadn’t, but they were able to describe that camel in great detail—so accurately that the man accused them of stealing his camel!
How could they be so right about something they’d not seen? By being very observant along their journey.
They had noticed that the grass had been eaten on one side of the road but not the other, so the camel must have been blind in one eye. They had noticed only three hoof prints, so the camel must have been lame in one leg. And how had they figured out that a pregnant woman rode on the camel? Well, they’d seen an odd puddle in the road, and one prince had dipped his finger in it, found the odor to be urine and definitely female, based on its effect on him. And another prince noticed that around the puddle were not only a set of human footprints but also handprints, indicating that the woman had to push herself up from squatting, so therefore they surmised she was pregnant. The adventures of the three princes continue on from there —serendipitously, of course— but that’s all for today.
How many of us pay as close attention to incoming data from our five senses as the three princes of Serendip? I certainly don’t make a habit of checking out the puddles in the street!
I once got a real good lesson in paying attention, in an assignment given by my junior high English teacher. One day, first thing, he said, “I want you to take out a piece of paper and write down everything you can remember noticing on your way to school this morning. Not just what’s on your route every morning, but what you noticed today.”
My morning bus ride was never quite the same after that!
If I said to you right now, take out a piece of paper and write down everything you noticed on your way to First Parish this morning, not what you know from long-term memory is along your route, but what you actually saw today. Or heard or smelled or tasted. Would you have much to write?
So, the kind of sagacity or wisdom that contributes to serendipity is the kind that comes from paying attention. An oblivious person doesn’t notice serendipities.
Serendipity also obliges us to have some purpose we care about, some good intention, or to have a dream or a hope, not for material goods beyond the necessities, but for a purpose more intrinsic to our well-being than acquisitions.
If we live to work, work, work, or if all we are seeking is to make it through the day, and through the week to pay-day and then to the gym and to shop til we drop, after which we pick up fast-food, fast-carry, fast-serve, fast-eat supper which we eat in front of the TV, it seems unlikely that anything more meaningful than “happy accidents” will come our way.
Serendipity of the type we’re discussing this morning, in which having a sense of direction or good intention and paying attention to more than what is directly on that path, is familiar to research scientists. The successful ones are those who are seeking something—a theory, an explanation, a result—but are open to unexpected ways of getting there.
In fact, a leading twentieth century sociologist of science [Robert Merton, in his post-humously published, with Elinor Barber, book The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science ] defined "serendipity" as "the fairly common experience of observing an unanticipated, anomalous, and strategic datum which becomes the occasion for developing a new, or extending an existing, theory" (p. 260). He said that the concept of serendipity (without the word) appeared in the world of science when Louis Pasteur, in 1854, famously told a group of students, "chance only favors the mind which is prepared" [p. 163]). The word itself entered the language of science in the 1930s when Walter Cannon, a Harvard physiologist, embraced it as a description of an essential theme in scientific discovery. Where had Cannon heard the word? From Samuel Crothers, his minister at the First Parish Unitarian in Cambridge!! (From a book review by Robert Michels, MD in Am J Psychiatry 161:2341-2342, December 2004, available on-line).
We here at First Parish in Canton in the 21 st century have lots of good serendipity stories, including ones that are more than happy accidents. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing some of them in recent weeks, and asked for permission to share some today. They’re fun, and yet underneath each one is the question, what does it mean to you?
In early autumn of 2003, Barbara came to worship here alone and sat in her usual pew. That day there was to be a guest preacher and his sermon title intrigued her. As she always does when picking up a hymnal, she glanced at the inside front cover to read any inscription that might be there. That day, she was stunned to see the names of her fairly recently deceased parents, who had been Universalists. She had never used that hymnal before! What made it all the more remarkable was that this happened on October 12 th, her birthday. And the minister’s topic was serendipity!
I asked Barbara what it had meant to her at the time and she replied that “it was a gift, a great birthday present.” Now was this just a happy accident, or was it serendipity? I think it depends on her intention in coming to worship that morning. Had she come just out of duty or habit, then I’d say it was just a happy accident that the hymnal in her pew had been dedicated to her parents. But, it was her birthday, and she came alone… perhaps she came to First Parish that day for a sense of connection to her heritage, some reassurance she wasn’t alone, a lifting up of her spirits … then these intentions suggest to me that the event was serendipitous.
What about this story? Recently, Dave was on his way to Charlotte SC for work. It was a Sunday afternoon, so he’d taken the paper to read on the plane. But the flight was delayed, so he decided at the airport to buy a novel to read. He chose The Time Traveler’s Wife, a best seller. Turns out that the plot deals with the very situation that had been weighing heavily on his heart—the possibility that the baby expected by his son and daughter-in-law had a rare chromosomal defect—and he was overwhelmed with sadness for them and for the characters in the book. There was no indication, at all, of this theme on the book cover. So why did he choose that particular book at that particular time? I didn’t get the chance to ask Dave what this experience meant to him, but I wonder. Was he perhaps seeking diversion from this family sorrow, and instead found an emotional release, serendipitously?
Patty has an amazing story too. She had been on a long job search, before she finally found a wait staff job at a café a few weeks ago. However, when she showed up to be trained, the staff person there was unwilling to do so and loudly rude about it, in front of the customers. Patty wisely didn’t react in kind. As she left, two people also were leaving and commiserated with her about what happened. One asked, “Are you looking for a job?” to which she replied, “Well, yes, I guess I am, now.” Turns out, they own a business across the street from the café, where she has been happily working ever since, with people she enjoys, overtime when she wants it, and full health benefits too!
Was this a happy accident or serendipity? Patty definitely was pursuing something—a job—and she was paying attention to her senses enough to know the café job wasn’t for her, even if it meant hitting the sidewalk again. Had she stormed out of the café, head down, either crying or angry, would good fortune have brought her a new and better opportunity so immediately? When I asked her what it meant to her, she said that maybe an unseen power has a hand in things, but we have talents and opportunities that we can choose to use or not.
Laurie reports that back in the spring of 2004, when she was still creating her way out of the company where she had worked for more than twenty years, her Covenant Group chose as its next topic, “If you could do anything you wanted to do, what would it be?” She hadn’t been the one to suggest it, but answering that question allowed her to name out loud the new career path she wanted to pursue and to confirm in herself that it’s what she had, in fact, wanted for years. Leaving her company was her opportunity, would she take it? Today, she’s a newly Certified Financial Planner and looking for work.
Was her Covenant Group’s choice of a topic just a happy accident? Laurie says that when something unexpected happens to her, good or bad, that it happened isn’t what’s important to her; what’s important is what she will learn from it. Life is one long learning experience to her, and serendipitous events often create great opportunities to learn.
Lastly, there’s Larry’s serendipity story, which you heard in the Reading, in his own words.
Were these incidents in Larry’s life just happy accidents, or were they serendipitous? Larry says he learned from them that maybe he believes in life after death now. That’s the meaning he makes of this experience. Plus, he marvels at the serendipity and says he wonders if life itself isn’t serendipitous.
Not to embarrass him in public, but don’t you see in these events evidence of what Larry cares about and pursues in life, his intention for relationships of love and integrity? He insisted on a true eulogy for his grandmother, even if he had to give it himself. He deeply valued the friendship of his neighbor Mr. C, and the clock that represented it. And just how far back in Tim’s closet did Larry really have to go, looking for the perfect photos for Tom’s sister to display at his funeral? Not all the way to the back, but to the back he went, out of love, out of loyalty, out of grief, and there he found his grandmother’s tablecloth, neatly pressed and hanging on a hanger. And the clock started chiming again.
If “serendipity” means, as it was originally meant to mean, “that quality which, through good fortune and sagacity allows a person to discover something good while seeking something else”…
And if, as I said at the beginning, yes, there’s good fortune involved, but by this definition, serendipity is a quality or faculty we can develop and is not just a matter of chance…
And if, to have that quality, we must have a good intention we care about and pay attention to way more than just our pursuit of it …
If all of this is so, I wonder… if our deepest good intentions, those we have out of love, are the ones that most tend toward surprising discoveries, most tend toward serendipity? Are our deepest good intentions, those we have out of love, the ones that most tend toward surprising discoveries, most tend toward serendipity?
Why such things do happen to us is a mystery to me. Why was that particular hymnal in Barbara’s pew for the first time on her birthday? Why did Dave choose that novel? Why were those customers in the café the moment that Patty discovered she couldn’t work there? Why did Laurie’s Covenant Group choose that topic just when she most needed it? Why did Mr. C’s clock stop chiming the month he died and start again the day after Tim died?
I’ve spent the better part of twenty minutes explaining serendipity to myself and to you, but it is still a mystery to me. I think I like it that way. Do you?