Unexpected

One night at Beginning Acrylic Painting Class, I was wearing a concert t-shirt from the band U2.  One of my students, Paul, arrived at class.  He was setting up his area and when he saw my t-shirt he exclaimed.  “I saw them,” meaning the band U2.  Several of the students in class said that they had seen them in concert.  I have had the great good luck myself to see them twice in concert and can say that U2 provide an excellent performance.  Paul said that yes he had seen them in concert but one time he actually got to talk to them.  Several other students asked him how did he get to meet them.

Paul shared his story with us.  He was in Hawaii serving in the military.  If my recollection is correct, it was a fairly new post and housing wasn’t ready or his furniture had not yet arrived, for whatever reason he was staying in a hotel.  He got in the elevator and hit the button for his floor.  At the next floor the elevator stopped.  The members of the band U2 stepped into it.  One noticed Paul’s uniform and thanked him for his service.  They then visited as they rode the elevator.  I can’t remember if Paul said he got out of the elevator first or that they did.  That doesn’t matter.  What matters is the experience.

Paul said that the experience was a bit surreal.  The last thing he expected, or even thought was a possibility was meeting Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.  His words, “it was so unexpected.”

Unexpected.  The Oxford dictionary defines the word unexpected as “not expected or regarded as not likely to happen.”  It is an adjective which means it is descriptor word or modifier.  Unexpected.  What an amazing word.  Think about it for a moment.  Unexpected.  Five syllables filled with wonder and surprise.

So much of life is expected.  Pay your taxes, go to school, go to work, eat your veggies, brush your teeth, go to bed, get up the next day do it all again.  Day in and day out.  Following the same routine, life can become expected and predictable.

Have you ever noticed that unexpected often happens when we need it most.  Some might call this synchronicity, getting exactly what you need when you need it.  Maybe you have had this kind of experience.  A friend of mine put on a jacket that he thought he had lost.  In the pocket was a $20 bill.  He was at a place in his life that finding $20 was a very pleasant unexpected surprise.

Unexpected reminds us to be open to possibility.  That we don’t always have to know what will happen.  It allows us to be filled with the wonder of being alive.  It teaches us to flexible and have hope.  I hope that you get to experience the joy of something wonderful and unexpected in your life today.