Cosmic Legos

Do you believe in coincidence? I do, but I also believe that God gets a little bored sometimes and decides to move time and space around to entertain himself, like cosmic Lego pieces.

This sort of low-level philosophy is not my strength, but let me explain:

On Saturday we were out in Hannover with our friends Tom and Sonja who had come to visit from Hamburg, along with their baby Fiona. Despite rainy, windy weather, we still wanted to wander through Hannover's antiques flea market. That lasted about ten minutes. Then we decided to seek shelter and have lunch somewhere. Of all the restaurants in central Hannover, we chose Shalimar, an Indian place owned by the parents of one of Brian's students. Please do not tell the guy who owns the Indian restaurant across the street from our apartment that we cheated on him.

Fiona likes to eat naan.

Of all the people who could be having lunch at Shalimar, there were three African-American men  and a German white guy sitting by the window. It took about five minutes for Brian to recognize one of their voices as that of Anthony Pinn, a professor who taught at Macalester College when we were there. As they finished their meal, Brian went over and introduced himself as a former student of Dr. Pinn's. Brian's hunch was correct; a college professor he had taken a class from in Saint Paul in 1999 was sitting near us in an Indian restaurant in Hannover, Germany in 2014.

Not only that, but also seated at the table was Cornel West, an intellectual celebrity, author and activist. He is one of the leading scholars in African-American studies and he's a pretty big deal. Dr. Pinn, Dr. West, and the other two professors insisted that Brian sit and join them for an espresso. Brian does not drink espresso, or coffee of any kind, but he drank it with them. He found out that they were all in town for a philosophy conference, where Cornel West was the key note speaker. They came over to say hello to Tom, Sonja and me, and Cornel West made grandfatherly goo-goo noises at little Fiona.

Cornel West

Brian found out in their conversation that Dr. Pinn, now working at Rice University, comes to Hannover twice a year to work with the German Philosophy Guy (that's probably not his actual title). Maybe next time he's in town we'll take Dr. Pinn to the Indian restaurant across the street. He could probably help me improve my blog-post-philosophy.

So how is that for a coincidence? Or maybe not a coincidence so much as The Big Guy shuffling those Lego pieces around a little, to keep us on our toes and remind us just how small the world can really be.