The coincidence in all things

A coincidence is a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, with no apparent causal connection.

Persi Diaconis & Frederick Mosteller, ‘Methods for Studying Coincidences’

No apparent causal connection there may not be but coincidence can sometimes be awfully fortuitous.
One time, when I was in seminary, I was due to travel back to the North of England for the holidays. Problem was, I had no money for the train fare. That didn’t stop me going to the pub, The Rising Sun in Mill Hill. Walking home, I somehow noticed something that I, for some reason, stopped to pick up. It was a small pile of cash. Only thirty odd British pounds but, coincidentally, just enough to pay for my train ticket. That should show how long ago this happened.
Of course, there was no causal connection between my finding just the right amount of cash and my need for that amount. But, I was in seminary, so prone to believing that a small miracle had just occurred. I certainly gave thanks for my good fortune. And realised that God obviously had no problem with me going out for a few beers.
The Rising Sun, back then, was just a small local British pub. Now it appears to be a whole different kind of establishment. All things change.
Maybe it was this incident that allowed me to view ‘all things’ with a certain understanding and, even, enjoyment. Coincidences, profound occurrences, do happen. I was entirely convinced by Scully’s coincidental discovery of her former professor lying in a hospital bed though she was only there to pick up some X-Rays.
Of course, Viktor Frankl, in ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, would say being able to find meaning in something that gives one’s life purpose is sufficient no matter how nonsensical it may appear to others. If Scully believes that the coincidences that occur during this period are meaningful, if she chooses to give them a deeper purpose than anyone other than her can see, that is all that matters. And as Frankl suggests, Scully does, by allowing herself to be open to the possibilities of the experience, achieve a degree of peace.
Showing a willingness we have begun to see more of, she opens herself to the extreme possibility of alternative medicine – and is there anything quite so extreme? – she saves the life of her former professor. But for the coincidence of the X-Ray mix-up, she would not have even known he was in the hospital as a patient. Having made the discovery, she must once again – as she had to in ‘Theef’ – accept that the whole array of modern scientific medicine was not enough to save him. It’s great to hear Scully, of all people, telling a medical doctor: “Daniel, that ‘crap’ may have just saved your life whether you’re open to it or not.” Is she channelling Mulder?
There is a passage, in Frankl’s 1992 Preface to ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, that would seem to apply to Scully in “all things”:

Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.

(Frankl p.14)

In a very literal sense, Scully has ‘surrendered’ herself to Mulder and his cause.
Famously, the teaser shows us Scully getting dressed and leaving with Mulder still asleep in bed. Naked pretzels with the morning coffee?
Though she has been heading in this direction since the very start, in this episode especially, we see Scully openly adopt a more Mulder-esque approach to solving a crisis. As I have said before, there is a certain serendipity to the sequence of episodes, whether shown in production order or not, and this ep perfectly situates Scully for Season Eight and a Mulder-less X Files. ‘all things’ couldn’t have come at a more opportune time – almost as if some planning went into the series.
I am not entirely sure whether I could subscribe entirely to Frankl’s approach to life. Nevertheless, it does give enough credibility to ‘all things’ to satisfy a non-critic like myself.