When we ask, why things happen the way they do, we’re usually coping with turmoil or hard times. We sometimes shift forward in our thought and reassure ourselves that everything happens for a reason, and that ultimately good things happen to good people.
For many, when asking why things happen the way they do, becomes a mindset seeming to help when dealing with healing marital or love relationship problems, perhaps a financial situation, and health and well-being, whether it’s disease, or weight-loss, overcoming drug or alcohol addictions, whatever it might be.
In a previous set of articles, which I linked together, I discussed the Worldwide Mindfulness Meditation which I was invited to participate in from a mysterious woman living in the eastern European country of Croatia, named Nakita, who’d been writing to me, while I was incarcerated in an Ohio prison for a foolish securities violation.
As I detailed in the previous articles where I describe her, I didn’t know if I should take her serious or not.
I was able to make a handwritten carbon copy of her invitation to mail to my friend William, who, in turn, wasn’t interested, so he mailed it to his sister living in New Mexico.
Then, by turns, the carbon copy flier I’d made from my prison cell, which went to William, then from William to his sister in New Mexico, and on to her friend in California.
Finally, it ended up at a wine tasting event in California on December 22, 2010, the night of the mindfulness meditation for world peace, where my longtime golfing pal Jon Phillips and his wife Becky had attended.
From my prison cell that night I had no idea what was going on, and had my doubts if anyone at all would actually be participating, and that I’d fallen for some sort of scam by the woman living in Croatia who’d sent me the invitation.
Good Things Happen to Good People
The wine-tasting party began at 5:30 PM Pacific time, with plans to stop whatever they were doing and to join in the worldwide mindfulness meditation at 6:30.
This gave Jon an hour to mingle and find out what he could.
“Why was Jim’s name on that flyer?” he asked everyone, persisting to point at what was by now a raggedy and worn carbon copy.
As it turned out, Becky’s yoga friend Reba had organized the flyer part of the party. She admitted she didn’t know me, but bragged that her friend who lived in New Mexico had a brother in Ohio who had spent time in prison.
Reba said that her friend’s brother (William) still corresponded with the author of the carbon copy, who was still an inmate.
Suddenly in everyone’s mind I was the one who dreamed up this idea. Of course no one was aware of Nakita from Croatia and her involvement and whoever else preceded her.
Reba, a good-natured hostess, proudly explained to everyone that her friend mailed her the carbon copy, which was the actual copy that came directly from inside the penitentiary—thus my handwriting.
Reba had taken it upon herself to make new photocopies on quality paper so that each person at the party could have a memento.
Jon said, “Reba took this to heart and had fun with it.”
He described to me how, as he stood there in amazement, staring at the flyer, he could not help but picture me at that very moment, behind bars in Ohio, getting ready to participate in this event.
A Course in Miracles states, “Effects do not create their cause, but they establish its causation.”
Why Does it Happen?
Jon said he envisioned me at my bunk, at the same time he and Becky and the rest of the group of wine tasters, and God knows who else from around the world, would be joining together in peace.
He said the entire yoga club Becky belongs to was highly enthused over the idea.
Jon said, as he stared at my handwriting on the carbon copy, that he thought back to the times in Florida when we played serious golf together.
He also thought about many of the deep conversations we’d had on topics such as world hunger, the homeless, God, Heaven, women, sports, our children, and more.
He thought about my three daughters, wondering how they were doing with me being in prison. The last time I had seen Jon, my youngest daughter, was only one year old.
Jon admitted, while wondering why things happen the way they do, that joyful tears came to his eyes as Becky gave him a long hug.
He said they both looked at each other smiling, and accepting in a truly strong, positive way that I was with them that evening.
Of course the word at the wine-tasting party circulated instantly that Jon was close friends with me, and also that neither of us had planned this incident in any fashion.
The credit here was certainly due to Reba, who had no clue that anyone in the group would possibly have a friend in Ohio who was in prison.
Let Things Happen
In fact, the startling coincidence mesmerized the entire group, and a particular, unmistakable joy became present, while they all talked about why things happen the way they do.
The eighteen of them, plus the pianist, the violinist, and the wine expert, gathered in a circle holding hands at precisely 6:30 PM.
At the same time, I was lying on my back on my top bunk, surrounded by prison noise and chaos, and for ten minutes, to help world peace, our radiance extended these words:
Peace be to me, the holy Son of God.
Peace to my brothers and sisters who are one with me.
Let all the world be blessed with peace through us.
Jon added in a letter to me a week later, that the wine tasted extremely fine that evening, and also that it was a safe party, with no one making the error of overindulging.
He said that the entire evening the others were asking about me, and Jon shared many of our golf stories—the good, the bad, and the ugly rounds of golf.
He added that Reba, the organizer, who seemed to glow with a radiant light, suggested that everyone feel free to use the flyer she had copied, inserting their own names, for any future meditation they may want to organize, big or small.
Jon said that during the small talk, someone said they had heard on the national news that due to a severe financial crisis, Ohio was not the only state making huge cuts in their prison system budget.
The news suggested prison closings and the release of many nonviolent cases.
Jon asked that I hang tough—that prayers from many were being extended so that freedom would ring for me soon.
As I placed Jon’s letter in my footlocker telling me all of this, I couldn’t help but to contemplate life and why things happen the way they do, and went a little deeper about just letting things happen.
I thought about when asking why things happen the way they do, events and circumstances that affect everyday lives, do so, like A Course in Miracles says, in that they are a result of the joining of Cause and Effect, as one, divine thought, not two.
Nothing separated or of duality, is what creates a true calling.
To why things happen the way they do,
James Nussbaumer
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