Meet me someday in San Francisco?

On the joy and significance of unexpected encounters

Sometimes you have to take a 4-hour plane ride to accidentally meet someone in person for the first time. Or to unexpectedly run into someone again after a 17-year hiatus.

This past weekend, both things happened to me in the City by the Sea (okay I just tried to make up a nickname for San Francisco). I was there for a conference put on by the fantastic Center for Faith & Justice, a group that has had a major impact on my journey.

If I were good at religious leader-ing, I would come back from a conference like that and blog for you about, oh I don’t know, faith, or maybe justice. But I am who I am, and what you’re getting is a fun story about these two chance encounters.

Twice during this conference, a fellow attendee said to me, “What is your last name?” My name tag said Jon, he/him, but it didn’t reveal my mysteriously French last name (I think I’m like 1/128 French, but that one person must have been my dad’s dad’s dad’s dad’s… patriarchy, am I right?).

The first time this happened, I was talking to Maria, someone I had just met at the beginning of the conference. When I mentioned in passing that I work for the Christian Century, she said, “Wait, what is your last name?” When I told her, she exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, we know each other!!” It turns out Maria is a friend of mine from Twitter. And that might not sound like a rock-solid connection point, but this wasn’t any random Twitter mutual; we used to both participate in a weekly progressive faith chat on Twitter, so we actually knew each other!

The second encounter was more surprising. After about a day of the conference, a woman approached me during a break and said, “Excuse me, sorry if this is weird to ask, but what’s your last name?” I told her, and she excitedly said, “I’m Stephanie ___!” (Look, I didn’t ask for permission so we’re using first names for my new/old friends.)

I met Stephanie on a 10-week mission trip in 2006.

Yeah, that’s right, 2006. That ancient year when Eat, Pray, Love was first published. When a few TV shows you might have heard of were debuting for the first time: 30 Rock, Hannah Montana, Friday Night Lights, Dexter. Oh, and the unaired pilot of The Big Bang Theory, though the show wouldn’t air until 2007.

Back when those shows were getting off the ground, Stephanie and I were out proselytizing on the boardwalk of Ocean City, NJ.

We hadn’t particularly bonded that summer. We did spend two and a half months together, but the mission trip had over 100 participants, so it was tough to get close to everyone. We had become Facebook friends, but we didn’t stay in touch after 2006.

Somehow Stephanie recognized me at the Faith & Justice conference. I honestly don’t know how she did it. In the last 17 years I have gone from looking like a 21-year-old man to a 38-year-old Shrek. But she somehow IDed me.

I’m so glad she did, because we got to spend some time reminiscing about our ages-old summer adventure and cringing over the beliefs, activities, and attitudes we espoused.

Why do I share these two random meetings with you? It is not, I assure you, to weave a tale of destiny. Maria didn’t donate a life-saving kidney to me, and I didn’t return some journal to Stephanie that she lost in 2006. There is no need to tie a bow on these stories, a bow that points to a cosmic or divine reason for the connections.

And yet… they mattered to me. They mattered to me because it was wonderful to meet Maria in person. It was a delight to catch up with Stephanie after so long. I choose to accept these as gifts, even as cosmic or divine gifts, even without an overarching sense of purpose to them. They brought me joy, and joy is good.

We once more run up against my faith leader limits, for I can’t even muster up a call to action to end this reflection. Um, don’t feel like you have to tie bows on your stories? Help me get better at coming up with nicknames for cities?

Or maybe this: when your alma mater asks you to represent them at a conference, say yes. Or for that matter (to return to an old blog post), whenever any opportunity whatsoever arises, consider saying yes. Because as much as I love wearing sweatpants and eating ice cream in my apartment (which is about to happen any minute now), no one walks up to me here and asks me my last name.