Len saw and lived in a world of enchantment, and in his final months he was much more pre-occupied with sharing that vision than with dying.  At the heart of his vision was something he called synergistic constellations.  (As we have planned Len’s memorial service, we’ve been thinking about his big themes. Please join us at 1 on Sat May 25 at 1st UMC Fort Worth). 

When we were in the hospital, I constantly took medical notes, trying to figure out what the doctors were saying, and I took Len notes for the same reason. I had limited success on both counts. Here is a summary of some hospital notes from October 2022 on Len’s enchanted vision of synergistic constellations. 

Len told me, “When people face their pain, they begin to live out of their sense of calling and begin to see the world differently. They are more likely to notice the synergistic constellations. Synergistic constellations are serendipity but more. Serendipity just happens, but with synergistic constellations, we connect the dots and begin to see the connections between people as they live out of their creative energy and calling. It’s kind of like those puzzle pictures where you can’t see something and then you can. It’s like a constellation in the night sky. You can’t see it at first. It’s waiting there to be noticed.  And when you see it, it changes everything. It gives new life to dead dry bones. It converts zombies.”

Len wrote on CaringBridge in the fall, “I am prone to see life emerging as synergistic constellations. The universe just wants a gracious flow of life to unfold and play. Underneath our busy ego plans and constructs, our souls can notice hints of emerging connections and healing community, and we can be conduits for this life-force. This ongoing, creative, life-force wants to connect us ‘through the heart of everything.’ Instead of a linear plan, God seems to want to delight in the dance of new partnerships throughout all creation for a freeing and fresh unfolding of grace and love.”

Len not only believed in and embraced this enchanted world, he was sure, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that we were all right there on the edge of seeing that vision too. His conversations, his messages to his groups, his many emails and texts were all variations on one imperative, “Look! There it is! Look!” 

It reminds me of those fleeting mystical experiences when suddenly you not only see that the world is shimmering with divine radiance, but you know – with more absolute a certainly than we should have in this life – that the world has been shimmering with divine radiance all along. “Look! There it is! Look!”