Over the years I have been assigned some serious tasks. In my day job as a counselor for an Employee Assistance Program, several employers have brought us delicate situations. In one instance, an employee recently died and the tragedy was something the employer wanted acknowledged in the workplace. The employee's best friends were coworkers, who were present at her death, and there was to be no funeral or memorial service. They asked me to come to the workplace and say something. Not knowing what to say has never stopped me before, so I went.

I didn't want an open mike of tearful coworkers, so I invited employees to submit written remembrances for me to read. I started by talking about irony. I was there to talk about a death but this wasn't a memorial service or a religious observance. I was there to remember and celebrate the life of someone everyone in the room knew except me. I wasn't there to talk about spirituality, but there is spiritual healing that takes place when we grieve. I read the remembrances, which were sad, funny, ironic, and moving. After a few additional comments, I ended by playing a song by Lowen and Navarro, "Just To See You." Because Eric Lowen has ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, it struck me as a spiritual song at the last concert I attended. It could be interpreted as missing someone or a spiritual longing, I said, and both seemed appropriate that day.

...when I find my strength is almost gone
You give me strength enough to carry on

I have no treasure but what's in my eyes
I know that I'm a fool but it's all that I can do
I'd make any kind of sacrifice
Just to see you...

© 1993 PolyGram Records, Inc.

After the meeting was over, one of the two employees who were present when their coworker died, one of her best friends, came up to me. She gave me a big hug. She said that Just To See You was her favorite song. She and her husband chose it for their first dance at their wedding reception last year.

Coincidence? In Zen it is said there are none.

In science, what is considered true and factual can be tested and replicated. Causal connections have to be demonstrated and have a temporal relationship, one must follow the other. Meaningful connections cannot be spontaneous or simultaneous. Seeing a meaningful connection where there is none is engaging in bad science, illogical thinking, seeing something simply because you went looking for it.

Our daily experience cannot always be deconstructed and explained by the scientific method. Yesterday, I wrote an essay about spirituality. Our conscious experience of physical reality always includes the effect of the observer, which in science is called the Heisenberg Principle. Simply put, no matter what we go looking for in science, part of what we see is us. I hypothesized that this may be our experience in spirituality. Our conscious experience always includes ourselves in relationship with the other. This is why in Zen they say that self and other is a false dichotomy: one is never experienced in isolation, they are always experienced in relationship and that relationship is one in which each is part of the other.

If this is the case in our consciousness of matter and our consciousness of people, called the Hawthorne effect, it follows that the Zen understanding would apply to spiritual consciousness as well. Of course the table and I are physically separate just as humans have skin that separates us. But if by observing either I change them both, then something deep within the nature of all things connects us. That connection is persistent and meaningful. Perhaps our consciousness of it is at least part of what we mean when we use the word spiritual.

After I wrote that essay my younger son arrived home from school. He had not read the essay nor had we discussed it. I came downstairs and greeted him and walked up to a large bookcase in search of a book, and instantly forgot what I was looking for. Everybody does this. Unfortunately I tend to do it more often as I age. So I'm getting used to it. Because this particular bookcase contains some great works of philosophy, poetry, religion, and sacred texts, I thought I might just scan the titles and see what looked interesting. My son said, "What are you looking for, Heisenberg?"

I asked why he said that and he said he didn't know. I asked him if they had taught him about the Heisenberg Principle in school yet and he said no. Perplexing, this.

A scientific deconstruction would say that we watch a fair amount of television about physics, cosmology, and science with our sons and it is doubtless he has heard this name several times, whether or not he grasps the principle. The fact that he said it was mere coincidence. But the name Heisenberg isn't on any book in that bookcase.

Another explanation is synchronicity. I was observing the books and he was observing me and in that moment I was pondering how one might apply the Heisenberg Principle to spiritual consciousness and considering mysticism might be a good place to start. Carl Jung would say this was not a coincidence nor magical. He would say it was normal because my son and I share consciousness. I would say we have a spiritual connection. My 12 year old son didn't just drop a name out of the clear blue sky, he was exactly right.

I really was looking for Heisenberg.