They say the world’s a small place, that there’s not a lot of separation between all of us on this planet. I experienced this the other day.

I now have under three hundred connections through “Linkedin” but they say that my network is over 5 million professionals. I’m not sure what that means or how that works, but just the other day I saw it in action.

Have you ever had a random encounter? I was once on a beach on Lake Huron (Sauble Beach), late in the afternoon when the normally packed beach had thinned out.

Sauntering up the beach towards us was a man who looked vaguely familiar. It turned out to be “The Great One’s” dad – that’s Wayne Gretzky’s dad, Walter, for those who don’t know hockey.

He stopped, and we chatted hockey in the middle of July on a hot, sunny day, on a beach half way up the coast of the third largest Great Lake.

But that’s nothing! I’m on my way to single-handedly prove the theory of “Six degrees of separation” to be true. The theory states that everyone is just six steps or fewer away from any other person in the world. And this is how it works …

I was out shovelling the other day with my wife. We stopped to talk to our next door neighbour at the bottom of our driveway.

Meanwhile, there was a man playing in the snow with his children, in this same neighbour’s yard, and I noted to myself that there was something familiar about him.

As we continued to talk with our neighbour, another woman came along. She and her family were staying with our neighbour for the weekend.

In our conversation, my wife, Lily, asked the visitor where she was from and she replied, “Toronto”.  Now Toronto is a big place – over 6 million people live in the GTA.

It’s not the kind of place you say, “Oh, I know someone from there. Do you know my cousin Vinny?” That’s ridiculous.

But Lily did ask another question, “What part of Toronto are you from?”  And the reply came “Etobicoke”.  That’s when I – a born and raised “Trontonian” – got into the conversation.

I casually said that I grew up in Etobicoke, more specifically Rexdale. At that a smile came over this woman’s face and she said, “We’re from Rexdale! What street did you live on?”

I was sure our game would end here. I said it was just a little, tiny dead end keyhole street …Restever Gate. Hearing that name, her eyes got really big and jumped out of her sockets about three inches before they snapped back into place.

When I saw her reaction, in a flash it all came back to me. I twirled around, pointed at the man in my neighbour’s front yard and shouted the man’s last name.

This guy grew up on the same street I did, just two doors down! Though I’m a lot older than he, I remember him as the little guy my brother and I would have fun conversations with at the end of our driveway.

Now he’s 45, and I haven’t seen him in about 38 years. We had a great chat and I can’t stop thinking about that encounter.

Here’s the thing: If you think that’s as wild a connection as I do, try this one:  you are only a prayer away from the Creator of the world, AND you can talk to Him every single day and He can be with you every moment of every day.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What amazing encounter have you had? Leave your comment below.