This Crazy Small World

Disney was dead right when he wrote that song "It's a Small World After All" (or whoever actually wrote the song was right.)  It's a crazily small world out there, and it never fails to blow my mind when I find out that I know someone who knows someone else that I know and I didn't know that they know each other.  Take for example, these most recent scenarios in my life.  And be recent, I mean all within the last month, with the exception of one that is within the last year, but ties into one that happened just the other night.

• Let's start with the fact that Elenatintil, whom I've known for six years now (where does the time go?) married someone who lived no more than thirty minutes away from me my entire life.  I've driven past his house multiple times over the years, he knows a few people that I know, but we never met until he moved to Minnesota and started dating Elena.  And now they are married.  Crazy!
• Tying into that... the other night I was sitting in my Microsoft Office class, and as I had a few minutes before class started I headed over to Elena's facebook page to wish her a happy birthday.  As I'm typing, the guy I've sat next to all semester happens to glance over and says in surprise, "Wait... you know the _____?"  Turns out he's the younger brother of a friend of Elena's husband.
• The other week, we welcomed a wonderful new addition to our choir at church.  She seemed like a nice girl, and I was hoping to get to know her better. The next week we had an awkward moment during the "Our Father" when we almost held hands, but didn't, but then did.  After Mass, she explained that she wasn't used to holding hands during the Our Father as the school she graduated from always did the Latin Mass.  I asked where she went, she replied Saint Thomas Aquinas, I said "Oh hey, I have a friend who went there!" Turns out she knows Clare and her husband...
• And then a few weeks prior to that, I received a facebook message from Ms. Iris exclaimed "What! You know ______????" To which I replied "What! You know ______???"  She said "Yes! We met because through a retreat with the Miles Christi." And I said "YOU KNOW THE MILES CHRISTI PRIESTS??????? WE LOVE THEM!"  Guess that means the family and I are going to have to head up and visit the priests so the two of us can meet!

These aren't the only crazy connections I've made throughout the years, they are merely the most recent ones.  Whenever it happens, it always makes me pause and laugh a little at how big the world really isn't.  We are all connected, someway, somehow.  Mutual interests can unite us, but there's nothing like finding out the person you just met knows someone else you know to spark and instant connection.  The spark might end up being just that, only a spark, but for the moment it lasts it helps us remember that we really aren't alone in this world after all.