Coincidences: Chopin, Abraham, and Isaac

Sometimes I read or hear about the same thing several times in the same week or month. I wonder about those coincidences. Am I just more alert to one reference, having heard or read the other? Are there cycles of reference that just come around now and again, and other writers and readers amplify them? Is it just some type of karma, some way the universe is leading me in a particular direction?

Two such coincidences have occurred recently. The first has to do with Chopin. I've just read three books, all with references to Chopin music and seen a movie in which Chopin plays a role. I'm only vaguely familiar with his music. I have listened to some of the more famous pieces, but I'm certainly not an aficianado. I wonder if I would like his music if I listened to it more. Certainly, in the books I read the music plays a vital role in the development of the characters. It is used as a test of emotional availability, as a means of sexual expression, and as a symbol of longing.

The other reference that has popped up a few times is to the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. The first time was in a podcast by Richard Krulwich, who does science stories on NPR. The podcast was of a sermon he delivered at his synagogue on the story. He emphasizes the silence in the story, the things not said by Isaac, Sara, and Abraham. He argues that perhaps it is in the silences that we find faith. I just finished a book called "The Work of Wolves." I don't know that it is great literature, but it has some interesting themes. At one point the story of Isaac and Abraham is raised. The character speaks of Sara, and what she might have said to Abraham, how we don't know those words. "The story we have exists because it is incomplete. It could not survive a real mother's words....The words by which we know are defined by words unsaid. And those unsaid words might be the ruination of faith...The story of God might not survive our hearing it." So, in some ways it is the opposite of Krulwich's argument. Is faith found in the silence, or lost in the silence?