I checked into the barracks at Capodichino (one of the sites that the U.S. Navy leases from the Italian government in the Naples metropolitan area). The next day, I went to my eye appointment at the Naples Hospital. The doctor looked at my eye and said that he had never seen anything like that before. He gave me some kind of ointment to put on my eye each night. When the appointment was finished, I boarded the shuttle bus to take me back to Capodichino barracks.
At the bottom of the hill, the bus came to a jerky stop. I stared out the window and saw two guys in suits on bicycles. One waved nervously to the bus driver. The bus drove and as we passed the guys on bicycles, I was shocked to see that one of the guys on the bicycle looked like my old friend from 7th grade, John Adams. He never kept in touch after I moved away from Nebraska in 1985, but I always remembered him. He was a Mormon and these two guys on bicycles were definitely Mormon missionaries. Back at the barracks, I looked up information about the Mormon church. I learned that one of the Navy Chaplains on the base was a Mormon, so I called him and told him about that coincidence in coming across this possible old friend of mine. He investigated for me and got back with me.
What I learned was that the missionary was indeed John Adams, but he was not assigned to a mission in the Naples area. He was in a Rome mission and I was able to get the address. After I received the confirmation of my hunches, I was shocked by the meaning of it all. I had not seen or heard from this guy in eight years. What was the likelihood that his path and my path would intersect on the road leading up to the U.S. Naval hospital in Naples, Italy in an afternoon in the spring of 1993?
As the Navy Chaplain told me, Elder Adams had to come to the American hospital to get new contact lenses. So, we both had an eye problem. And this chance meeting could have been missed if I had taken a later bus that day, or if I had gone to Naples weeks earlier as my squadron doctor recommended. It was a coincidence that depended on both of us being at that exact spot at that exact time and day. It also required that I had the ability to recognize an old friend (for John had no way of seeing who was on the bus or might not even remember me).
This coincidence opened the way for a new understanding. It was the one event I needed to shatter the logic-based view of atheism forever. I know that atheists and agnostics dismiss coincidences as “just a coincidence” but when I think about how improbable that situation was, I knew that there was an unseen force in our world that works in a mysterious way that defies any sense of logic or mathematical probabilities.
When I was released from the doctor’s care, I dealt with another of the Navy’s bureaucracy…getting back to my command in La Maddalena. I had to wait on a MAC flight, with no guarantees that I would get on a specific flight. MAC flights were twice a week, if I remember correctly. I kept my command up to date on my status. The Yeoman I worked for kept referring to my stay in Naples as a boondoggle, which annoyed me. The Navy was keeping me in Naples. True, I took advantage of being in Naples by shopping in the Navy Exchange and buying the latest paperback novels in the Stars and Stripes Bookstore (which La Maddalena did not have) and eating at Wendy’s (no American fast food restaurants in La Madd either).
But I decided that rather than wait for a MAC flight, I would return on my own dime and get reimbursed. Talk about initiative! The Navy was giving me an extended “vacation” in Naples by delaying my MAC flight spot, but I used my own travel abilities to get back to my command.
In Rome, I stopped by the Mormon mission office to talk with John Adams, who didn’t remember me as much as I remembered him. Everyone was curious about this coincidence story and I got to see how a mission office operated. They even gave me an Italian language Book of Mormon. Normally, American missionaries aren’t permitted to use a military hospital, but since Adams was an Air Force dependent, he had an I.D. card that allowed him use of the hospital. Back in the seventh grade, my circle of friends were all sons of Air Force personnel, since our junior high school was near Offutt Air Force Base.
After the short visit, I made my way to Civitavecchia to catch the overnight ferry to Olbia, Sardinia. The next day, I caught the bus from Olbia to La Maddalena, and my trip was completed. Did I receive thanks from my Yeoman supervisor? Hell, no. He was a complete dick. He thought the whole thing was a scam to get a free vacation to Naples, even though I had medical documentation. I think in retrospect that he was jealous that I got to go to Naples while he had to work for two of us. Besides, it seemed like the universe conspired a way to get me to that place of having an amazing coincidence.
What does that coincidence mean? To be honest, even eighteen years later, I still haven’t a clue to the meaning. I did get a letter or two from John Adams after our meeting, but no friendship sustained itself, so that’s another dead end. The best answer I could come up with is that this coincidence was a wake up call. The kind that God knew I needed to experience for proof of the spiritual force that operates in our world. It was the coincidence that began a series of coincidences.
My eye returned to normal. I think my red eye lasted for three or four months. I still don’t know what was wrong with it. Its one of those spiritual mysteries, I suppose, whose sole purpose was to get me to Naples to be in the precise location to experience that coincidental meeting. I consider the coincidence in Naples to be the biggest one of my life.
