I certainly don’t believe in god and I’ve become generally skeptical of other “spiritual” theories. However, events occasionally force me to reconsider. There’s the big stuff: love, the birth of my children, natural splendor. But what really gets me is the potentially divine camouflaged as routine. So, this happened to me again today: Of all the mountains and mountains of pages published every year, somehow the exact pages I need to read happen to find themselves before my eyes at the exact moment I need absolutely need them. Today it was a book I’ve considered reading at least a half dozen times – even checked out of the library and checked back in unread - but never got around to. But there it was today, after a series of unbelievably dramatic and borderline tragic moments (that now seem almost scripted) left me shaken, shamed and lost. I’ll try to describe the impact of this novel without hyperbole or melodrama, but the first two chapters touched me to my core and illuminated everything (okay I failed). I guess if something as crazy as a platypus could come to exist by circumstance, chance and natural selection, so could these books find me at the right time. But today, trying to read through tears, I wonder…