On the Bus on the Road

So I got on the bus today, and as I am putting my money in the machinamathing, I hear this meek voice from behind. "Hey Pasta". (That's "pastor". Someone was not calling me "pasta". The lady had an accent)I recognized my friend instantly even though she had only attended Steamtown Church twice. I couldn't remember her name at the time, but I remember her. She is the "tambourine lady". She distracted me from concentrating on finding a place to sit, and instead of immediately finding a seat, I stopped, for just a second to greet her, and in that second the bus driver accelerated. So did I, and straight towards the back of the bus with my back facing the back, and my backpack flailing. Nobody laughed out loud. Humorously, I made a slow trek back to a seat at the front of the bus with the "tambourine lady" seated directly across from me. She had a million questions. And she uttered them at rapid fire, seemingly without a breath, and before I got to answer them, another passenger was ready to get on the bus who really needed help. We'll call him "Joe", the tambourine lady "TL". Joe has a hard time walking and is debilitated by some sort of muscular disease. I moved from my front row seat and he sat down. TL helped him with his fare. The "conversation" I was entertaining with TL picked up right where it left off, and then "Joe", interrupted as if there were no conversation, as if he was initiating the conversation.
"Are there any churches on "Luzerne Sreet"? I don't know exactly what TL thought that she heard him say but she replied
"You're looking for a Mormon Church"?
My thoughts at this question were full of stereotypes and thus more inside laughter since it was quite clear, at least to me, that my African-American friend Joe was not looking for that kind of church, nor did he say anything resembling the word "mormon". In fact he was visibly confused by the question. He politely responded.
"No, any church on Luzerne Street."
"Oh, I tought you said "latter day saints" (instead of "Luzerne Street")
"No, Luzerne Street"
"Oh, well isn' dis jus' divine appointment. 'Dis man here is a pasta". Joe turned to me and said,
"Oh what kind of church is it?"
"Non-denominational" I said.
"Non-denominational" Joe repeated.
TL said, "It's at the hotel across from the Dunkin Donuts downtown."
"Oh, I just moved here" said Joe
"Oh, well have Pasta here give you da number. Dere church runs a van route. Dey'll pick you up. 10 o'clock. Sunday morning."
Joe looked at me happily, "Yeah?"
I wasn't sure we did have a van route so I said, "Well, you live in West Side right?"
"Yeah" he said. "Right where I got on".
"Well, that's right on my way."
We exchanged numbers and I told him to call me Sunday, to pick him up for church, and TL cried.
"I was going to get on da 12:35 bus, but something told me to get on da 12:55, and now I know why. Her voice lowered and she said, "Divine appointment".
Then Joe said, "Yeah me too! Something told me to get on this bus" and TL cried.
"God is so good to us" she said to herself and everybody else.
"Amen" said Joe.
I said nothing. By now it was time for me to get off. We exchanged cordial goodbyes. I told Joe to call me. TL said, "God bless you pasta". I said thanks and exited with the following thoughts.
I wondered what the bus driver was thinking the whole time as he remained completely silent. I wondered if he thought I was too young to be a pastor or if he wondered why a pastor was riding the bus. I wondered if he thought the lady was crazy. I wondered if he enjoyed listening to the conversation, if his heart was warmed or if he thought it was a joke. I wondered if he thought the conversation was silly, or sad, or if it caused him to be angry, or stricken with grief.
I was glad to meet Joe but I didn't think to much about him.
I thought about how TL was so touched by this happening. And then I thought about how impressed I was by this happening. It's a good story, right? But why? Because it has irony, and coincidence. It has a plot which is plausible, but rare and unlikely. But is this all that makes a story good? How much of a good story has to do with how the story is told? I think it has a lot to do with it, although the raw material of irony is necessary for any good story, whether its there or supplied. I also believe that good storytellers have an ability to pick out from thin air an irony and run with it. And the best writers can take something that has no inherent dramatic quality,and infuse it with that dramatic quality, that ironic element that makes it worth listening to.
But I also thought about how a cynical person would interpret our little situation on the bus. That person might not consider it anything at all. It might not enter his mind that this happening is worth a retelling, whereas I believe that good storytellers see stories everywhere.
I then related this thought to religion. For surely the agnostic would not be nearly as affected by the situation as TL? He might discern the irony of the situation, in which a pastor gets on a bus at the same time that as a disabled young man looking for a church, but it would certainly seem impossible to him that it was divine appointment. What then would it be to him, a coincidence? I'm sure that it would, and a not too amazing coincidence either, since the agnostic man would already place no value on church or spirituality. He might ask the reasonable question: "What are the chances that a pastor would get on the bus at the same time as another man looking for a church, and that they would talk about it?" I don't know? And the thing is that there probably is a mathematical way to figure out what the odds are. And my bet would be that most of the happenings that happen to us throughout our day, have astronomical odds of happening, even though most of them we are not blown away by. Most of them we do not call "divine appointments". TL considered today's happening a divine appointment because it related to something very dear to her, and was indeed a rare kind of occurrence in her personal life. But she actually had no good reason to think that it was a divine appointment. But the more appalling truth is that in making the statement she is either right or she is wrong. For either every occurrence is a divine appointment and therefore all events are equally impressive, or no occurrences are divine appointments, and that point many of them can be measured according to the likelihood of the happening, although it is extremely doubtful that every happening as a calculable probability. I believe in the first of those two, for various reasons, that have come up and will come up in the succeeding posts. And I am trying to get to place in my life where this brand of fatalism that I've adopted makes me a God-fearer and not a cynic. That is I want to perpetually amazed, like TL at God's providential way of working in history, or never amazed. The true skeptic, the agnostic, cannot accept my brand of fatalism, for it would force him to be amazed at the providence of God in the Holocaust, or the personal tragedies that have appeared in his life. I would be willing to admit that my brand of fatalism appears to accept a God who actually rather sadistic, no who possesses the worst form of sadism, that is divine. But I might also add that divine providence, by virtue that it is divine, is not calculable, and therefore, not to be interpreted, only accepted.
But if I actually look at the world this way, wouldn't I be in a safer place, both spiritually, and intellectually if I were an agnostic? Yes. But it wouldn't be more reasonable. For to be an agnostic I must be open to the possibility that none of the happenings of the world have an original initiator. I must essentially deny "cause and effect". Without "cause and effect", how can I explain anything, especially as a skeptic, or a scientist? A person who denies cause and effect is not an agnostic, but neither are they a historical Christian. A person who denies cause and effect must simply believe that he or she is nothing, that all things are actually no-thing. He must essentially deny reality as we know it. I think it's better to admit that you're confused. And so am I? Unless of course, you tell me a story. Then I can make sense of situation.
But you say: "What if it's not true?"
What? The situation? How could a situation not be true unless it didn't happen?
"What if the way you interpreted it was untrue?"
How do I know that?

Maybe it will help to tell you how I interpreted it. I interpreted it as a story worth telling. I am trying to get to the place in my life, where I see the raw material of God's genius providence in everything, enough, that it's all worth telling. How is this an untrue interpretation? Does it belong in the true/untrue category at all? Or does it belong in some other category? I contend that it does. I also contend that the fundamentalists inability to see an epistemological category that's not propositional is the reason why they can't understand the emerging generation. But trust me, I wholeheartedly believe in the Apostles Creed. I believe it the same way that all evangelicals do, and I would use all the words the same way that all evangelicals would. The difference between my worldview and the worldview of my evangelical brethren? I can admit and articulate my confusion, and go on believing what I believe, since confusion about how the system works together, doesn't change what I think about the system's conclusions. It's like I'm going to Philadelphia and I'm on I-81, and the entire time I am wondering if taking 476 would've been easier, and I'm spending my entire trip doing calculations, and probability problems, factoring in stops, and traffic, ne'er trusting Google. But eventually I arrive at Philadelphia. And you took 476 because that's what Google told you. And you don't make calculations, you get there one half hour before me. I'm not saying all roads lead to God. I'm saying, just because the road's different, doesn't mean the destinations different. If I tell you, "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, fully God and fully man, that God is the creator of everything, that He exist in three persons, distinct and co-equal in power and essence. That Jesus died to pay the penalty for my sins, and rose again." Can you care about the road that led me to that knowledge?
Jesus did say that He is THE way THE truth and THE life. I suppose that what I would say to that. Jesus is the way I have found to the Father. I guess I'm not talking about that road, but the road I took to Jesus. For me I just believed. I still do.