Looking for the Bigger Picture
It is easy to become so involved in the everyday tasks and busyness of daily life that we fail to see the interconnectedness of all the people and events. Even the smallest and most trivial of things can result in a major impact in our lives. A nail carelessly dropped in the driveway can become imbedded in a tire resulting in a blowout on the highway. This could cause an accident involving other cars and possible injuries to others. The nail was the beginning, but the consequences, though seemingly unrelated to the nail, are laid out in mind-boggling complexity. There are no coincidences in life; everything happens for a reason and, in the scope of the Universe, has its own unique place in the scheme of things.
I watched the movie “Signs” again last night and was struck anew by the interconnectedness of all the seeming random little things that happened. In the movie, Mel Gibson plays and Episcopal priest whose wife is killed while walking along the road before dinner one night. The man who struck her had fallen asleep at the wheel, something that had never occurred before. There was a very specific time in which this could have happened; two seconds sooner or later could have made the difference between hitting and missing her. As the man told the priest, “It was like it was meant to happen.”
The woman hangs on to life until Mel’s character arrives and speaks to him before she dies. She says two things to him that make little sense at the time. “Tell him to see,” she says, referring to him, and “swing away, Merrill, swing away.”
After his wife’s death, the minister’s children begin to exhibit strange behavior. The young daughter develops an obsession with water. She takes a sip from a glass and then demands a new one. The old one is dusty, dirty, has amoebas, is stale, etc. Soon, there are glasses of water all over the house. The son develops an obsession with aliens and UFOs. He finds the one book in the bookstore of their small rural town dealing with the phenomenon and insists that his father purchase it. He takes it home and studies it intently.
Crop circles appear all over the world, including the corn field in back of their house. The animals act strangely and the family dog attacks the children and is killed by the son. Strange noises are heard in the corn and though Mel would like to think they are the result of neighborhood pranksters, soon admits that the cause in unknown.
When the UFOs are sighted all over the world, the family sits watching the television for the latest developments while the son reads parts of the book aloud and shares the UFO information. One of the illustrations in the book is very much like their house complete with the family members and the dog. It is strangely eerie that the author of the book seems to know what the aliens are thinking and what their true intentions may be.
The man who was responsible for the wife’s death captures one of the aliens in his pantry and calls the minister. His number had been by the phone for six months and was the only one he thought of to call. He leaves for the lake feeling that the aliens may not like water. All the places they have been sighted so far have been inland and away from bodies of water. The minister uses a large knife as a mirror to see the alien’s reflection under the door of the pantry and in the process, cuts off several of the alien’s fingers.
Back home, he and Merrill, his adult brother, board up the house to keep the aliens out. As the aliens gain access to the house, the family takes refuge in the basement. The son is frightened into an asthma attack. His father must talk him through it since the medication was left upstairs. Several hours later when it appears the aliens have left, they return upstairs. The alien that the minister encountered in the pantry is in the house and reaches for the son. He administers a poison gas to the boy.
Merrill, who is an award winning batter, is reminded to “swing away”. He picks up the bat and attacks the alien. During the melee, glasses of water are spilled on the alien and it is discovered that water acts like acid when it touches the alien’s skin. Mel carries the boy outside and administers epinephrine to counteract the asthma attack. Because of the attack, the boy’s airways were constricted and the poison gas did not have a chance to harm his lungs. The family is safe.
Though the entire story was fiction, I thought about the way all the seemingly random things made the difference in the survival of the family. Life can be like that. The poet stated “for want of a nail the shoe was lost.” That was followed by the horse, the rider, the battle, and the kingdom. Never underestimate the value of a nail, or any other seeming trivial thing.
I have often spoken about life as a tapestry seen from the underneath. We view only the work in progress and see the knots and tangles, the loose threads and the disorderly array of colors. The pattern makes little sense to us and the overall direction is sometimes beyond our comprehension. Yet among all the chaos and confusion, the Universe knows where and why we are going. There is indeed a pattern to all that happens and a direction in all our comings and goings. We just cannot always identify it at the time.
Free will still plays and enormous part in our lives for we can purposely change colors, directions, and the pattern at any time. Every decision and choice we make affects the overall pattern of our lives and can change the direction we eventually take. This is one reason that choices should be thoroughly considered. Decisions should be carefully pondered and evaluated before being made. Of course, the good thing about making decisions is that if you make a mistake or change your mind, all you have to do is make another choice!
Life is an endless opportunity for new decisions and choices. Nothing is written in stone. Everything is subject to change and improvement. Nothing happens by chance. Everything has meaning and a reason for appearing in our lives. So when life surprise you with a sudden twist and a surprise, follow the threads back and you will begin to see where it started. Like Mel, you may discover that the pieces have been there all along waiting for you to see the pattern and put them all together.
Begin looking for the bigger picture and take a Universal sized view of your life. The little things are just little things. It’s the pattern and the direction that are important. Not happy with where your life is heading? Don’t blame the fates or God or the planetary alignments. Change your life to suit you. You can do it!
