Is there a God or Divine Presence that intervenes in our lives? Or is all human experience simply the working out of natural forces and laws?

At the age of five I had an answer. At that time, as mentioned in an earlier sermon, I went around house and neighborhood crying "God, bah humbug!"

But no sooner had I said these fateful words than I began to have doubts about my doubts. Little did I know that I would be sentenced to at least 56 more years of questioning and searching.

I now realize that what I was bah-humbugging was the idea of a God having a physical being. How ridiculous that a Creator could appear as one small part of its own creation.

It would not occur to me until later that maybe the Divine could be something transcendent, something that has neither a body nor a gender, something that somehow permeates and communicates with the deepest parts of our psyches, something that transcends time and space. Such a view of the Divine would explain why we have prophetic dreams, why we experience deja vu and actually "remember" the future, why some of us have had near-death experiences where we seem to leave our bodies.

What have I learned in the 56 years since I said "God bah humbug"? One might say I haven't yet met God face-to-face but something transcendent has more than once left a calling card.

Let me begin by assuring you I have not come across any instance where the laws of physics were violated. No seas parted, no one walked on water, no one appeared out of nowhere, no thunderclaps occurred in response to cursing, no one returned from the dead, no paintings shed tears -- none of those improbable things we are conditioned to think of as miracles ever happened, at least as far as I know.

But I have sensed the presence of Something looking over my shoulder, a loving and compassionate Something, a Something with a sense of humor, a Something that intervenes subliminally by sending timely impulses and dreams. And I have sensed that very little in our human experience is as purely random as we might think.

* * * * * * * *

I would like to share with you four experiences in which I most strongly sensed the presence of that Something looking over my shoulder. These are not the only experiences, just the most unforgettable.

We have all, no doubt, heard couples claim they were "meant" or "intended" for each other -- as if some force or being actually arranged the events by which they met. I used to snicker and roll my eyes when I heard this, for it seemed to me that they were glorifying happenstance, and I took delight in noting how quickly these same couples dropped the words "meant" or "intended" on the day they split up.

But when I look back at my own relationship, now 37 years old, I have the unaccountable feeling that some kind of cosmic matchmaker was at work. To begin with, the odds against our meeting were almost astronomical -- Meri lived 80 miles away and was supposed to have a date with another man on the evening we met. Moreover, I had been until that time an extremely shy, self-conscious person who had flubbed every relationship. But at the time we met, I had a strange sense of wanting to "cast my fate to the winds" -- a sudden tremendous desire to let go of everything and let events carry me where they would. So I left behind my existence as a radical intellectual living in New York's Upper West Side and moved to the Lower East Side to become a hippy. I cannot begin to list all the improbable, impulsive things that Meri and I each did -- without a single one of which we would not have ended up together. Nor can I explain the impulse I had to reach out and hold her hand only an hour after we met. Without any self-consciousness or second thoughts, my hand just moved over and grabbed her hand. And when I did that my whole being felt at peace, as though I had been holding that hand all my life.

I cannot, of course, prove or disprove that the impulses that brought Meri and me together came from any source outside of ourselves. But our individual impulsive actions make little sense at all other than in their final consequence: our getting together. It feels as though some divine force knew that there were two individuals who were exactly right for each other -- and found a way to bring them together (in a city of 12 million, no less!). It feels as though some invisible force led me by the hand, and then placed my hand in Meri's hand. I did not feel that I was being led by my own Will, and certainly not by my own unguided Reason.

But what I feel is not necessarily the same as what I think, nor is what I feel or think necessarily what I believe. Not being able to "prove" any of my hunches to the satisfaction of my rational intellect, I reserved judgment. I kept on being a skeptic, but a skeptic who was open to the possibility of the Divine intervention.

Twelve years later an experience happened that would further challenge my trust in the randomness of things. This one I call "the only poker hand I ever tried to lose." For nearly two years I played poker every day after lunch with my fellow crew members on the Burlington Northern Railroad. Now I was a terrible player: unable to bluff and almost never folding. After a year and a half of losing badly, and paying for everyone else's lunch, I had an incredible six-month winning streak. One day the other crew members decided I had won too much, and informed me of such. One crew member even threatened to throw me in the lake if I won the next hand. The dealer made an elaborate display of splitting, mixing, and shuffling the deck some 15 to 20 times (even though it had already been thoroughly shuffled), and the person who cut the cards made an even more elaborate display of cutting the cards -- "thin so Paul won't win."

Of course, the hand I was dealt turned out to be a Full House (odds one in 700). I quickly discarded three of my five cards so as to make my hand have the least value. But the three replacement cards I was dealt filled in my hand to create a Queen-high Straight Flush (odds without wild cards: one in 65,000!). I threw down my cards, to act as though I had a terrible hand and were folding. But one of the players picked up my cards and showed them around. I wasn't thrown in the lake, but there followed a stunned silence never heard before, punctuated by only a few slurred expletives. And after that day the crew did not play poker for several weeks.

Now my Voice of Reason chimed in with all kinds of rational explanations about how even the most improbable long shots do actually sometimes happen. But I am still overwhelmed by the improbability that the best poker hand I ever had would be the only one I ever tried to lose.

But winning a poker hand isn't the sort of reason one would want to give for becoming religious. So I remained essentially a skeptic, but still secretly hoped for a more direct appearance of the Divine -- perhaps even one in a more seemly setting.

About 10 years later came a third, even more incredible experience. This one I call "the standup comic in the rescue truck."

It was perhaps the most trying day of my life. I had spent the day painting the living room and was extremely tired, and all the living room furniture was in the bedroom so I could not go to sleep, the house was a total mess, and relatives were arriving the next day for an extended stay. Just as I was finally putting the rollers and brushes away, I discovered the unthinkable -- the whole thing had been painted with the wrong paint -- semigloss! Now I don't often lose my temper, but on this one evening the volatile mixture of exhaustion and frustration ignited the fumes I was running on, and I completely lost control.

Just at the instant -- the exact instant -- that I was about to put my fist through the mispainted wall, the strangest thing occurred: at that exact instant I heard a siren and saw flashing red lights on the window blinds! I ran out the front door, and to my horror saw a rescue truck pulling into my driveway! Assuming some neighbor had called the Men in White Coats, I ran up to the driver to tell him everything was okay and I had just lost my temper. What I saw at that moment, however, had a "Twilight Zone" air of unreality: the two persons in the front of the vehicle were pointing at me and laughing hysterically! And the driver of the vehicle dropped a couple of one-liners out the open window!

(Long pause)

Of course there's a rational explanation. This is a UU church.

A moment later I recognized the people, and everything changed -- or did it? The passenger was a member of my son Daniel's soccer team, and the driver was my son's soccer coach, Jason, who also happened to be an actor, a standup comedian, a medical student, AND an Emergency Medical Technician. My son was in the back of the truck, his head poking through into the truck cab. This was the night of the soccer team's end-of-the-season party, and Coach was giving the boys the thrill not only of riding a rescue truck with siren blaring but also of seeing the horrified looks on their parents' faces as the rescue truck pulled into each team member's driveway! (Pause)

Coach Jason could not possibly have known what was going on in my life as he pulled into my driveway, nor could he have known the tremendous, unforgettable effect that this event would have on me. Yet somehow I will always remember that the Universe found a way to deliver a standup comic in a rescue truck, and to do so at one of the few moments in my life I most needed one!

What are the odds?

And what do the odds against something happening have to be before we suspect intervention? Or could it be that intervention is always happening and we just don't notice it because most of the time no obvious natural law is broken?

(Long pause)

The fourth and final experience I call "Miracle at the Seven-Eleven." This occurred on February 17, 1999 – a day I will remember every day for the rest of my life -- in the parking lot in front of the 7-11 convenience store at the corner of Folsom and Valmont in Boulder, Colorado.

After purchasing a snack, I got into my van and put the shift lever into reverse. I looked carefully in both rear view mirrors and was about to lift my foot off the brake pedal, when suddenly the car phone rang. It was my wife Meri. The funny thing is that she could not remember why she had called me.

Now normally I would have continued backing up while talking to Meri, but on this particular day a voice deep inside me – my "mind chatter" voice, perhaps -- said, "What's your hurry?" And so I put the shift lever back into Park while talking to Meri on my cell phone – at the exact instant that a woman came running out of the 7-11 with a horrified look on her face. She ran around behind my van, and picked up her little toddler who was standing right behind my rear bumper!

My Voice of Reason, of course, tells me I should not ascribe this to anything but wonderful luck. And my Voice of Reason points out that since Meri and I run a business together it's quite likely she will call me two or three times a day.

But what are the odds that she would call me at exactly that second? A second earlier or later would not have worked. There are 28,800 seconds in an eight-hour workday, and if she calls me three times a day then the odds of getting a call during any one particular second are about one in 10,000. And if you multiply that by the odds of my having an impulse to slow down -- let's say about 1 in 100, since I am an extreme "type A," always on the go -- then the odds of this sequence of events are somewhere around one in a million!

In other words, there was only one chance in a million that I would not have continued backing up. And that chance happened!

(In case you are wondering, I did go back to the 7-11 and park in the same spot to verify whether it was possible I might have seen the little girl's reflection in the window glass of the 7-11 out of the corner of my eye. It wasn't possible. I also tried to see whether I might have caught a glimpse of the girl in the rear view mirror out of the corner of my eye. But clearly the rearview mirrors were adjusted too high for me to have seen her at all.)

Since this event I am more suspicious than ever about life's randomness. More strongly than ever I sense Something looking over my shoulder -- Something with greater wisdom than any human individual could possess -- Something that sends us timely subliminal messages -- Something, moreover, with knowledge that at least partially transcends Time, Space, and Individual Consciousness..

VOICE OF REASON (a disembodied voice, seemingly out of nowhere): All of this evidence is anecdotal. It's not scientific, you know. It's all just . . . synchronicity.

Excuse me, but there's something wrong with the cordless microphone receiver. It's picking up someone's thoughts!

VOICE OF REASON: Don't you recognize this voice?

Oh my God, I do recognize that voice. You're my Voice of Reason that I've been telling these people about! You're my rational alter ego, my skeptical sidekick, my wet blanket. Why if it weren't for you I would never have said "God, Bah Humbug!" when I was five. If it weren't for you I wouldn't have harumphed every one of the world's great religions. Why, if it weren't for you, I might even be a Buddhist Monk or a Hindu Mystic!

VOICE OF REASON: If it weren't for me, you'd probably be dead. Who has kept you from tripping over your shoelaces all these years? Who has kept you from joining cults that want to go live on comets? And who saved you that time you almost drowned, or that time you almost got electrocuted? And you thought you could come here without me this morning! How little you appreciate all I have done for you!

Oh come on, that was Intuition that saved me!

VOICE OF REASON: And by the way, I don't make you harumph. It's your ego that harumphs, not me.

Well, without your constant stream of skepticism I would never have had anything to harumph about. I'm tired of your negativity. I'm tired of your pointing out to me all those Humanist Role Models. I want to have faith!

VOICE OF REASON: Hey, humanists love music and children and pets every bit as much as you do, and they live wonderful, fulfilling lives -- without having to dabble in metaphysics! And they do have faith; it's just faith in the real world, not in divine bailouts.

Anyway, it's irresponsible of you to address this highly intelligent audience about matters of which you have no proof. You need to help them focus on four-dimensional reality. Not nearly enough speakers are talking about that kind of thing these days. The minute we start thinking of Divine Intervention, we become careless. We start to pollute and pillage the earth, thinking some benevolent deity will save us from our folly. And before long we might start jumping off a cliff, trusting that a bunch of clowns will show up just in time with a truck full of pillows. . . .

Excuse me, but I'm not addressing the National Academy of Sciences. This is a church, and intuitional knowledge counts for something here. These people are already inherently rational people. They don't need to be preached at about Reason.

I'm trying to uplift people, to get them to consider the possibility that we are not completely trapped in a blind, mechanical universe, that we can trust our intuitive side!

And I want to help people to trust those little inner voices -- those voices deep within us that say strange things like "why not move to the Lower East Side and become a hippy" or "call Paul" -- or "what's your hurry?" How totally different my life would have been if I had not listened to those voices! How totally different some other lives might have been if I had not listened to those voices!

VOICE: Making people expect rescues that may not happen, do you call that uplifting? To the contrary, to be uplifted is to look reality square in the face.

(Pause)

And by the way, what if I told you that that was MY voice in the parking lot?

Nice try, but I know that that voice was not your voice. You're always telling me to slow down, it's true, but your voice is a loud, shrill voice that comes from the top of my head; this voice was a quiet whisper that came from deep in my gut.

I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal. I'll acknowledge that you're my most important everyday influence if you'll acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, you're not my only Spirit Guide.

VOICE: Nice try, but I can't acknowledge that. It's not what I'm here for. My duty is to challenge you every time you start getting metaphysical -- to stop you from floating off into the clouds and taking a tumble. I'm here in the interest of your health and wholeness.

But I'll tell you what. I will make one concession, and this is purely hypothetical. My concession is this: If there were some kind of connection between your Unconscious and Something outside yourself, I would have no way of knowing it. I can cast doubt on it, but I cannot disprove it -- because Reason cannot look into the Unconscious. It's too murky over there in your right brain. Boy, do I get vertigo every time I try to peek through your Corpus Colosum.

Thank you for that concession. I appreciate that. Now I'm going to make a concession to you, my Rational Alter Ego. My concession is this: Skepticism is actually healthy. What's important is not to overwhelm skepticism with irrational Belief, but to balance skepticism with an Openness to irrational possibilities. (Read it again.)

The problem with organized religion is that religionists have taken a good thing and pushed it too far -- they have built a largely self-serving superstructure of doctrines and pseudo-answers on top of what should be simply a sense of Divine Mystery. The rational intellect balks at this superstructure, and the response of many intelligent people is to shut down completely and reject the Divine Mystery along with the false doctrines -- the baby along with the bath water.

My question for you, my rational friend, and for my audience is this: When does the leap of faith to see life's miracles as random events become greater than the leap of faith to sense divine intervention?

VOICE: And my question for you is: Why do you have to think about all this? If there is some kind of intervention, it would seem to take place whether or not you believe in it!

So why not just go through life as reasonably as possible (listening to me all the time, of course), and you'll be happy and content. Whatever gifts will come your way will come your way. So why worry where they come from?

Obviously my rational sidekick and I have some work to do. We'll be back in another fifty years with another sermon.

VOICE: By then we'll have all the answers.

Amen. Shalom. Blessed be. And thanks for putting up with us.

Delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, Colorado, April 16, 2000 and at Namaqua UU Congregation of Loveland, Colorado, December 10, 2006.

Revised 8/06