Paolo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” talks about how we have angels and omens in our lives, and his omens are those messages from The Universe. I have received more than a few in my life.

The most profound came in the early 80’s. I had been married and was a graduate student in a PhD program in mathematics when my wife decided that this grad school stuff was taking way too long and took off with another guy.

I was totally dislocated, drifted from Michigan to California, and spent the next five years being an acrobat and making most of my living from delivery work. I had actually reached the pinnacle of delivery work when I got a Teamster Union job doing wholesale milk delivery. Then I kind of blew it by taking an unauthorized day off to go skiing with friends. As a punishment, I was given a week off without pay.

The next morning I was able to sleep to a reasonable hour, get up, have coffee, and read the newspaper. The headline was “Critical Shortage of Math Teachers in Los Angeles Unified Schools”. The article told how the District was giving emergency teaching credentials to qualified candidates. This was very clearly a message meant for me, the blinders dropped from my eyes, and I used my week off to start the paper work to get one of those credentials. Three months later I was teaching high school.

I thank the Universe for its messages and omens!