Today I ruined someone's surprise birthday party.

Yesterday I made borscht.

The day before that I went to a Mormon party in the sky and spoke to everyone there.

The day before that I watached the first episode of the first season of 24.

The day before that I flew back to Philadelphia.

The day before that I went snowboarding with my ex-boyfriend.

The day before that I hugged my mother and told her I love her.

The day before that I flew to Utah.

The day before that I ate dinner with my brother and his wife in Houston.

The day before that I dreamed I conquered the world.

It's good to dream. I dreamt yesterday that I gave some of my clothing to people who needed them. They were in two plastic trash bags. So I awoke and put extra clothing in two plastic trash bags and dropped them off to people who needed them.

It may be good to dream, but It's not good to ruin someone's surprise birthday party. Especially if you don't know them very well and especially if you are not invited.

This is how I found out about the party: "Hogan," says I (yesterday), "why don't we celebrate little MB's birthday party on Tuesday?" "Well," says she, "because that's Nick's birthday party and some of the people MB wants to invite to her party will be going. We are having it on Monday instead." "I see." says I, "Does she even really care about those people though?" "Yes," says she, "since one of those people is I." "Oh." says I.

This is how I ruined Nick's surprise birthday party: Let me set the scene. The day is a Balmy, sunny day in February. I am wearing a light, bright red jacket. I stand outside of my car with Prithi. We are near Penn campus on 39th and Spruce. Prithi lives here and I am delivering some items to her. We stand on the sidewalk, chatting, when suddenly we are interrupted by a friendly, "Hey guys!" We both look up the hill. Walking towards us is that very same Nick who is having a party Tuesday. I have not seen him for 8 months and am happy to see him. "Hi Nick! I haven't seen you in so long!" "yeah, not since before I got married." "Well, Happy Birthday tomorrow!" "Thanks, how did you know it was my birthday?" "Oh, because Hogan is going to your party." He looks confused and changes the subject, "This is my friend Jason." He says. "Hi, Jason!" We say. "Nice to meet you"'s are exchanged and we all shake hands. "Well,We've got to go. it was nice to see you guys!" says Nick and they start walking off. "Good to see you too!"we call after them. We pause for a moment and watch them walk off. I turn back to Prithi and finish my explanations. I then get in my car and drive off towards South St.

As I am driving, something is bothering me--it's the way Nick was confused when I mentioned his party. Then, the realization comes to me: WHAT IF HIS PARTY IS A SURPRISE???!!! I feel sick inside. I text Hogan, "Is Nick's Party a Surprise party?" I recieve a response--"Yes."

And there you have it. I am sure he as figured it out. What are the odds I would run into Nick when I haven't heard of him or seen him in months? What are the odds I would know about his party and what are the odds I would tell him about it? I am rarely up at Penn Campus yet I happened to be there just as he was walking by. I never talk to or hear about Nick yet I just ran into him today. What are the odds?

Which brings me to this: There are so many strange occurances in life! It always makes me question the deeper meaning of these occurances. Being religious, I question how much of God's hand is behind these. I believe that it is impossible for ME to understand or comprehend all that God does. It's such a spiderweb and I don't have eyes that can see such fine details. But for some reason I just love THINKING about it. I just love trying to figure it out! I just love straining my eyes, trying to look at the web in every angle, in every light that I can imagine in order to follow it's complex, tangled pattern. I just LOVE it. It's so fascinating to me! I love thinking, "Well, if this didn't happen, or this did happen, and what caused this to happen, then this wouldn't happen. . . " etc. etc. I love thinking, "if this happenend, then, if anything, what does it mean? How much is God involved and what, if anything, is God trying to do?"

Now, in the case of ruining Nick's birthday party, I know that the odds were greater for me to know about Nick's birthday party than my supervisor's cousin's birthday party. I know that the odds of me running into Nick were much greater than the odds of me running into Madonna. I also know that it was my own stupidity that made me mention the party. I should have been more careful, because, statistically, there are many birthday parties that are surprise birthday parties and I should have realized that this could have been one--especially since Nick is not the type to throw himself a big birthday bash. But all of those coincidences still fascinate me. What if knowing about the birthday party will make Nick choose to say "no" when asked to stay in the clinic longer so he is on time for teh "surprise"-- when potentially, he would not have. What if there was an accident that will take place an hour later and would cause Nick serious harm that he avoided because of the knowledge that he needed to be back in time for a surprise party.?

There's probably a trillion more "What If's" I could think of. I am just using this experience as an example. I don't really think there was any monumental reason this happenend. I think it was just one of those combinations of events that would cause a surprise birthday party to not be such a surprise. But I still have in the back of my thoughts, this question: Did that have any deeper meaning or purpose in it? This intricate web of life is so fascinating to me. It is amazing how much we are influenced by other people and their choices. Truly no man is an island.

It is also amazing how much small things have potential to be catalysts for great things in our lives. The Doctrine and Covenants has a great verse on this: ". . .be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great." (64:33). Now this is talking about GOOD things but I think the principle is true with BAD and neutral things. Our actions have effects that can be huge, whether good or bad.

Here's a kind of long-winded, far-fetched example: I went up to Newark, NJ to help a friend of mine get to the airport. Since I was there, I decided to call some friends in Manhattan and do something fun for the evening. One of my friends was JBR. I called him at work. I asked him if he had any extra concert tickets. He said, "hang on a minute, I've got a call on the other line." I waited. Then he said, "Sharon, I don't have any concert tickets, but a partner in my firm just offered me 5 Nets tickets for tonight. Do you want to go?" I said, yes, definately. It had actually been a couple years since I had been to a basketball game live and I had never seen a professional basketball game. We went to the game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had forgotten how much I like basketball. Also, while I was there I had this crazy thought/desire. I remember saying out loud: "I think I would like to date a professional basketball player."

I went home and I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. What a strange, random thought that I was entertaining. Well, since I just broke up with someone and was still feeling sad over it, I thought this would be a good, fun rebound. (Nothing like a good, unrealistic fantasy to get you over a break up.) So, I thought I'd continue to entertain this and figure out how I could go about it. For the next week I brainstormed. I finally came up with a game plan. I remembered that there was a professional basketball player who grew up in the same town in California as my sister-in-law and that their families are good friends. I looked him up on-line and found he was single, attractive, and seemed to be a good person. If my sister-in-law set me up with him. . .I could date a professional basketball player. I could reach my goal.

Now part of this is tongue in cheek and part of this is the serious wild question, "Why not?" Why not do it? It seems to me that a flight attendant would be perfect to date a Professional Sports player because they are both travelling and have odd schedules. I could fly whereever he played games and could get time off when he gets time off. Since both of us have jobs that take us away from home, there would be no dramas of, "I want you here all the time. I'm not sure if I can handle a long-distance relationship."

Right, so Last week I had dinner with my brother and sister-in law in Houston on my way to Salt Lake City to go snowboarding and explained my idea to her. She said, well, what do you know, Your brother and I are going to a basketball game here in Houston in a few days and he(the professional basketball player) will be playing at it. She said she was going to e-mail him anyway and tell him they were there. She didn't mind adding a few extra things in the e-mail.

So, the plan is in place and I am getting over my break-up by acting on this crazy idea I had to date a professional basketball player. Now, what's the likelihood of this working out? Very, very slim. But you never know. . .My point here though, is that If I had never called JBR and if I had never gone to that Nets game, then I probably wouldn't have had the idea to date a professional basketball player and I probably wouldn't have had dinner with my brother and sister-in law on my way to Utah and. . .what if it did work out? I'm just throwing out the idea, what if it did work out? That would be a serious, life changing thing for me. And it would be All because I decided to call JBR while I was up in New York right at the exact moment when one of the partners of his firm decided to give him tickets.

Okay, that's one extreme, but there are a million other WHAT IF's. Can you follow the web? I can't. I just know I had a "FEELING" to call JBR, the kind that I get when I pray. In this particular instance I felt divine guidance to go to the game. Maybe it was just God saying, yes, it will be a fun experience, maybe it was God saying, yes, it will help you get over your break up. Maybe it was God saying, yes, it will develop a better relationship with your friends. Who knows, maybe it is God saying, yes, it will help you to meet someone who will have a big impact in your life. Or, maybe even, yes, it will help you develop a closer reltionaship with your brothe r and sister-in-law. Maybe it's all of these, maybe it's some of these. Maybe it's none of these. THAT's what I find interesting. I can't see all of the strings in the web--where they connect, where they are going. But in this instance, there is not a doubt in my mind that God's hand WAS involved. I just don't know why.

Right, so let's see if we can re-cap this. The birthday party is different than the basketball game because I had no "feeling" to do anything that day. It appears to be more random. Probably due mostly to circumstance and my own stupidity. However, both had strange coincidences, occurances that effected my life and other people's lives. How much is God's hand in any of these things? I don't know. But it's interesting to think about.

(To interject, this is probably the most revealing of my entries so far into the crazy things I think about. I may erase it after leaving it up for a couple of days. We'll see.) Anyway, might as well get back to dreams. And how dreams relate to my basketball and birthday ruining experience. The dream I had about clothing--Was it my subconscious telling me to give away clothes? Or was it God? I don't know, and frankly in this instance I don't care because the result was good regardless. I gave some clothing to individuals who need it. No matter what, it was a good result whether it came from me or God.

Finally, after enjoying myself by trying to figure out the design of the web, I am left with one real care: Does it accomplish good? How can I make this experience a positive one? What have I learned? I have learned that it is indeed a fine web that is woven--one that Is too small and intricate for my eyes to see. I believe that it is woven by someone--even though it is still influenced by wind, dust, rain and flies even. That web always gets rebuilt. Always. God's hand is always weaving and repairing the web of life.

One more thing about dreams: I read a poem once that said,

"I slept and dreamt that life was beauty
I awoke and found that life is duty."

Well, I have decided that you can have both. You just have to figure out how to do it.