The other day, I found something unusual in my letter box. On top of the pile of bills and junk mail was a plain white envelope which had been delivered by hand, without my name or address written on it, and bearing the intriguing inscription "I think this belongs to you". Ok.
The envelope was otherwise unremarkable, and its shape and weight provided no clue to its contents. I peeled it open in a state of fairly excited curiosity (no, it doesn't take much) and discovered.... a clerical collar. What? Some of you have heard part of this story, but bear with me, it gets better.
I put up a sign in the post room stating what I'd found and telling the unknown rightful owner where they could find me if they wished to reclaim their property. At 0730 the next morning, there was a knock on my door. Had I not already been up and dressed, this would have made me properly grumpy. As it was, the caller was lucky he was going to be greeted with a smile and not by a vision of bad hair and hostility in a dressing gown.
It was the owner of the lost dog collar, an American priest who'd been staying with a friend who happened to be my neighbour. They'd been in the pub the previous night, the collar had come off after a few drinks, and had been forgotten after quite a few more. The bar staff had put the collar in the wrong letter box. I couldn't be annoyed with the guy for coming round so early because he had a good reason - he had an early flight to catch back to the States and he was in a hurry.
And that was the end of that, or so I thought. But yesterday, I received yet another exciting piece of mail. The priest (Mark, by the way) had posted a card to me from the airport saying thanks etc., including his e-mail address "in case you're ever passing through XX and would like to have a drink, or a meal, or come to my church".
Now, XX happens to be the city I spent part of my childhood in, and of which I still have extremely fond memories. So of course I had to e-mail Mark. And it turns out, he is the curate at the church I used to go to when I lived in XX! Not only that, he's married to the woman who'd been my first grade teacher all those years ago! She and I had a chat on Skype, and it was surreal and wonderful. She'd been an amazing, inspiring teacher, and I hadn't fully realised her value until I recently came across some old school projects and reports she'd written about me. It was she who first taught me to be academically fearless, and I was so pleased to be given the opportunity to finally thank her.
You couldn't engineer a nice surprise like that, could you? But God can. I know it's a fairly frivolous example, but in the context of the week I'd had, it just reminded me that God moves in unexpected ways sometimes, and in ways we just don't have the imagination to contemplate. And how exciting is that?
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