Tuesday 27th November 2001 15-40 CET
More Coincidences
On 6th November I wrote about coincidences. Well today I was reading one
of my favourite things on the web...Alastair Cooke's "Letter from America"
which is found on the BBC website (www.bbc.co.uk)
under world news section. Alastair Cooke is, I believe, in his early 90's now and has the
enviable record of the longest radio show...over 50 years now I think.
More especially, he is a very knowledgeable person and has been
'well connected' for a long time. He was asked to reprint the following
account of the 'Kennedy coincidences'..and added a little more:

"Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846, Kennedy exactly one hundred years later in 1946.
Lincoln was elected president in November 1860, Kennedy in November 1960.
Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy who urged him not to go to the theatre.
Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln who advised against his going to Dallas.
Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and ran off into a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy from a
warehouse and ran off into a theatre. Lincoln was succeeded by a Southerner named Johnson.
Kennedy was succeeded by a Southerner named Johnson. The first Johnson was born
in 1808, the second in 1908.

Well no soothsayer has helped (to explain these 'coincidences').
I have, however, a favourite theologian - my only favourite theologian - Dr Frederick Buechner.
He has written, among many books, a small book called An Alphabet of Grace - his ideas
about the pervasion of what he calls the grace of God are wide and ranging, funny and imagination
and may amuse or enlighten the irreligious as well as the devout. Under C we find "coincidence".
Here it is."I see in a letter the name of a woman I haven't seen or thought of for 20 years,
next morning I run into her in a grocery store in our town.
"I look out the window, a solitary car passes, its licence plate combines my initials
and those of my wife. We chuckle. "Perhaps somebody is saying, 'Stay the course'.
Somebody may keep reminding you that they have you in mind."


Alastair Cooke: Letter from America: BBC website: 27th November 2001

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