Ironman: Coincidence or Godwink?
May the night sky never cease to unleash our awe
We humans crave order and predictability. We want the world to make sense so badly that when a few things happen at the same time in an unusual way, we may connect them in our minds, suggesting a causal link of some sort. But they’re not really connected, are they? Coincidences happen all the time, but they’re just that: coincidences. Right?
Furthermore, our minds can lead us to notice things under some circumstances that we wouldn’t under others. If I’m psychologically primed for whatever reason to notice oak trees or cardinals or purple socks, I’m going to be more likely to see them than I would if the hope of doing so wasn’t somehow lodged into my brain consciously or unconsciously.
That’s one way to view reality. And given my training in the social sciences, I get it. I really do. Many events are statistically unlikely, but that doesn’t mean the probability of them occurring—even at the same time in ways that seem or feel connected—is zero. It’s plausible that our universe has plenty of randomness. And it’s plausible that our minds are biased toward recognizing patterns—maybe even when they’re not there.
But might some unlikely events actually be connected? Might our reality be one that includes both coincidences and … something else? Or might it actually be the case that there are no mere coincidences?
I’m not going to attempt to address these matters directly here, as doing so would require considerable philosophical and perhaps theological work. We’d have to delve into things like materialism and metaphysics and much more. Many, many others have explored these topics elsewhere.
Instead, I’ll just share something that happened last Thursday.
Background: Ironman
To understand this story, we must begin with a few points of history.
First, my son Vincent dressed up as Ironman for Halloween in 2020. In fact, our whole family—me, my wife, Vincent, and Vincent’s three siblings all dressed up as superheroes that year.
Second, Vincent loved his costume. His affinity for toy swords, I used to theorize, probably came from the power they made him feel despite his relatively small stature (he was quite short for his age). Perhaps the Ironman costume did the same thing for him.
Third, Vincent died in a tragic accident not long after Halloween on Nov. 7, 2020. He was seven years, nine months, and thirty days old. (He’s buried in the cemetery pictured in the background of the photo above, which is behind our house. We’ve since landscaped the slope going up from our backyard to the cemetery. It now features a set of steps so we can easily walk there.)
Fourth, the fact that Vincent had recently dressed up as Ironman quickly became common knowledge in our small town. People at one of the local schools donned red and gold on one of the days the week after he died. And American Fireworks, a local business, put on a special Ironman-themed fireworks display the evening after his funeral.
Vincent’s Birthday, Dominic’s Surgery
Last week, as I shared here, Vincent’s little brother Dominic underwent brain surgery to install a ventriculoperitoneal shunt. (Thank you very much to everyone who reached out with kind thoughts and prayers. Everything went as planned, and Dominic is back home smiling and laughing.)
The surgery occurred on what would have been Vincent’s twelfth birthday. As such, Vincent was more on our minds (at least mine and my wife’s) than normal.
After the surgery, Dominic’s team wheeled him to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), got him situated, and then someone came out to get us.
We went to his room—number 14—and spent some time fussing over our little guy. He was still fairly groggy from the anesthesia, so he drifted between sleep and staring vacantly at the ceiling.
At one point, my wife left the room briefly. She returned with a few tears in her eyes and asked me, “Did you see the sign outside the room?”
I hadn’t, so I went out to look. Here’s what I saw:
There it was: Ironman. I looked around at the other rooms and noticed that they all had a different superhero character. Some of the characters weren’t obvious at first because the sign hanging on the sliding door of each room had other pages on it with other information (e.g. allergy information, dietary requirements, etc.) to be displayed depending on the needs of the patient.
So our room’s theme was not only Ironman—it was also flipped to that page, making it tough to miss.
There are twenty-three rooms at this PICU. The odds of any one patient ending up in room number 14 or any other specific room is low.
Why did we end up in that specific room, the one with a literal sign of such significance to us because of Vincent, on Vincent’s birthday no less?
Should I quickly dismiss it as a coincidence?
Or is it a reminder of something more, maybe even what some people have taken to calling a “Godwink?”
I can imagine many people I know and respect coming down on either side of the coincidence or Godwink question.
The it’s-just-a-coincidence side of this crowd includes many types of people, but they generally seem to be those with a view of reality as something we can access fully via the scientific method, something that will in due time be absolutely be understood in predictable ways.
The Godwinks-exist side of this crowd also includes many types of people. In general, they seem to be those with a view of reality as something that we can access partially via the scientific method—but that there are also aspects of what’s real that’s beyond the realms of the material or what one might call “natural.”
In all fairness, there are also many people whose views fall somewhere in between these two extremes. And quite possibly the largest group of people—I’m speculating here but I don’t think it’s a long stretch—are those who just don’t think about these types of questions very much or at all.
Regardless, I see these as questions worth wrestling with, discussing, and understanding. My friend
, much to my delight, has begun sharing more in this domain. Here’s one of his recent posts that resonated with me.
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
I recently listened to a podcast in which the astrophysicist
mentioned a poem by Walt Whitman. And regardless of where one falls on the coincidence or Godwink question, I think this poem is one that helps us remember the wonder and gratitude that we appropriately should feel regarding our existence and the universe we inhabit.Here’s the poem.
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
By Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Science and the scientific method are tremendously powerful; without them our lives would unquestionably be much shorter and much more difficult. At the same time, being a human involves far bigger questions and ideas about things like how we think about ourselves, our behavior, our interactions with others, and what deserves our attention.
It seems to me that the world does indeed comprise coincidences and Godwinks, moments in which the sacred pierces the profane, and mysteries beyond our comprehension.
Regardless, may we never fail to see the beauty and connectedness of our reality.
And may the night sky never cease to unleash our awe.
Love this Ben. I am a big believer in Godwinks. No doubt Vincent aka Ironman is watching over your family.
So happy to hear that Dominic’s surgery went well. And no doubt in our mind that the Ironman room was a sign from Vincent and God. 🤍🩷