The Element of Everyday Miracles and Its Hope for Reveling In the Mysteries of Life

The Rocks from Galilee - they were a gift to Mary's Mom from her Grandpa; Mary's Mom in turn gifted it to her.

The other day, I was sitting in a conference room with Mary and a Varicent developer.

Mary is on the commission team at the company where I am currently on assignment.

Tasked with documenting the commission processes at this company, I was entering notes in Microsoft One Notes about the different sales incentives paid out by the company, and the data sources for each of them.

“What can you tell me about the SPIFFs, Mary?” I said, “How often do you pay SPIFFs and who gives you that information?”

Mary replied: “Strange you ask. Piper just sent me an email asking me about this month's SPIFFS as well.”

Piper is Mary’s boss and I have to work closely with both him and Mary.

 “It's telepathy”, I said. 

Both Mary and the developer stopped what they were doing and looked at me.

When someone says something like that, there usually is more to come.

“I have had several amazing coincidences in which telepathy had to be involved” I said.  “Do you want to hear my story about the 3 benches?”

“Yes,” said Mary, lighting up, “I have had some amazing coincidences happen to me as well.  You tell us your story about the 3 benches first and then I will tell you both about my pebbles story.”

So I told them about the time I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea for a story about 3 benches and what I discovered later on.

“That’s amazing,” said Mary, “now I will tell you my story”

Mary’s Story

Mary was a member of a Bible Study Group. 

Then she decided to take a break.   

After about a year, she felt she should start going to Bible Study again.

But she wanted to find a new Bible Study Group and was unsure about how to go about finding this new Bible Study Group.

Around that time, she visited her mom. Mary’s mom surprised Mary by giving her a velvet box which contained some pebbles and a note.

“This is from the Holy Land and it is over 50 years old” said Mary’s mom.  “Your grandpa gave it to me. He brought it back from his visit to the Holy Land. The stones are from Galilee where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount as it says on the note.  I would like for you to have it.”

Mary knew she would treasure the box for life.  It contained, besides the stones, a hand-written note from Mary’s grandpa, which read: “These rocks are from the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus spoke to the multitude. The Sermon on the Mount from the mouth of Jesus.”

The next Sunday Mary was attending Sunday service when she happened to glance through the church bulletin.  Suddenly, the following words caught her eye in the events section of the bulletin:

 “Women Only Bible Study Group meets every Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the church hall. Topic this week:  Sermon on the Mount.”

Mary felt the hair rising on her hand.  She thought about her mom’s gift to her and her grandpa’s words and knew her search for a new Bible Study Group had ended. The answer was staring at her in these words in the bulletin. She would go to this new Bible Study Group and study the Sermon on the Mount with them.

On Tuesday Mary went to the church hall at the appointed time. 

“What can we do for you?” asked the group of elderly women she saw before her.

“I have come to join your Bible Study group and to study the Sermon on the Mount with you” Mary answered. 

“This is amazing,” said one of them, “We have been praying non-stop for someone new and young to join our group, and here you are. But do tell us, how did you find out about our group and what made you to decide to join us?”

So Mary told them the story of the stones from Galilee from her grandpa and his note about the Sermon on the Mount, and about reading in the church bulletin about the Sermon on the Mount being the topic for this week for the Bible Study group.

The ladies were perplexed, “But the Sermon on the Mount is not the topic of the week. You must have read wrong.”

Mary had brought her church bulletin. “I am confused,” she said, “this is what my bulletin said.” She showed them her bulletin.

As it turned out, the Sermon on the Mount was a misprint. The bulletin had been reprinted with the correct information. Everyone in the group had the corrected copy. Everyone save Mary. Her copy still had the topic listed as the Sermon on the Mount.

Call it a miraculous misprint - Mary would be the only one to get a copy of the bulletin with this misprint - a misprint with so much personal meaning for her; and this misprint would bring her to this Bible Study Group where they had been praying for someone like her to come along.

A miracle on all sides.

Mary's miracle got me thinking about how in each of our lives, there are miracles that are uniquely ours, miracles that are precious, important and personal, miracles no one else can claim.

But we will see them as such, only when we are transformed, when we have moved to a different level of being and have become open to the idea of miracles.

Getting my first job in advertising was a miracle.

So was getting my first break as a commissions analyst.

And my first break as an SPM consultant. 

Do you sometimes wonder why someone else lands a role or a job you feel you can perform better than they do?

I often do.

The answer is the miracle that got them that role or job was meant for them and is uniquely theirs.

Albert Einstein said,“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

When you join the camp of those who think everything is a miracle, you revel in every small stroke of luck, every little chance happening that saves the day.

Here's a small miracle that happened to me recently...

The Vacation Fish Feeder 

Recently Tanita and I had to go out of town.

In the days leading up to our trip, I worried about the 3 members of our family who would be left behind.....

Our 3 goldfish...

Who would feed them?

The last time we went out of town, my friend Becky was living in our apartments. I gave her a spare key and she popped in once a day and fed the fish in our absence.

But now Becky lived 4 miles away. Driving over to feed our 3 goldfish would take a lot of her time. I was hoping I could come up with some alternate solution so I didn’t have to ask her.

A week before my trip, I had lunch with Rich, a commissions analyst. At lunch we were talking about this and that.

When he told me he had several different pets -  dogs, cats, birds, fish, thinking of my upcoming predicament with my goldfish, I asked “Dogs, cats, birds, fish...who takes care of them when you go out of town?”

“Oh, I have to make arrangements with someone to look after them,” he said.

“I am in a predicament,” I said, “I am going out of town next week and I have 3 goldfish to be fed.  It’s tough to ask someone to come over every day in your absence just to feed 3 goldfish.”

“Oh, you can always buy a vacation fish feeder,” he said.

“What,” I asked, “a vacation fish feeder? I didn’t know there was anything like that.  It must be very rare and expensive and available only online. Would it be worth it for only 3 goldfish and would I be able to get it in time for my trip?”

“They’re cheap,” he said, “here let me look it up on Google”. He looked it up and announced, “it will cost you between 2 and 3 dollars and any pet store will have it”

I thought to myself, “Who would have thought there would be something like that!”

I went to Petsmart. Right enough, there on the shelves, with all the brands of fish feed, I found the vacation fish feeder he was talking about. Fish shaped blocks which came 4 to a pack, and which when placed in water, would dissolve slowly to provide a time-released source of food.

I was set.

A small personal miracle had saved the day.

I was able to go on my trip without worrying about my fish, and without bothering my friend Becky.

Small miracles happen on a frequent basis

Some of them appear as 'aha' moments.

It was an “aha” moment which led to my becoming an SPM Consultant...

I had quit my full-time job as a Commissions Analyst, and was still trying to figure out what to do.  Meanwhile my sister Rosie attended a job search talk. At this talk, the speaker told the attendees they should not hesitate to include on their resumes, any skill development courses they planned to pursue - even those skill development courses which were in their future. Rosie shared this with me on a phone call. After the phone call with Rosie, I found myself thinking about this.  “I know what I can do, ”I thought, "I can do the Xactly or Callidus Administrators Course. Once I am able to put that on my resume, job opportunities will open up.”   

And so I called Xactly and signed up to do their Administrators course. This got me into an Implementations company. From that I branched out into becoming an SPM consultant doing implementations, testing, documentation and administration for companies using Excel, Centive, Xactly or Varicent.

It all started with a miraculous phone conversation with my sis Rosie which was the first link in a chain of events.

I am sure you have stories to tell about your own miraculous first links in a chain. And your own "aha" moments.

Your own Newton moment. Your own Archimedes moment. Your own St. Augustine moment.  Your own Goldwire moment.

Goldwire moment? What’s that?

Let me explain.

The Goldwire Moment

Back when I ran my own creative shop Purple Patch, a client of mine decided to start his own agency and didn’t know what to call it.

He and his wife went on a vacation shortly before he launched the agency.

In the nightstand drawer beside their hotel bed, they found a King James Bible.

Devout Christians, they decided to open the Bible and seek inspiration within its pages to find a name for their agency.

When they opened the Bible, it opened to Exodus 28 and the chapter Clothes for the Priests. The chapter made several references to gold wire.

“That’s it,” they decided, “let’s call our agency Goldwire.”

Be Ready and Willing 

“Miracles come in moments.  Be ready and willing”, says Wayne Dyer.

And Richard Bach says “You're never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true.” 

There is a mystery at the heart of who we are, and our personal struggles and longings, and there are forces beyond logic and reasoning to help us solve our problems, overcome our challenges, and to dare to dream.

Enjoy each small everyday miracle in your life, and understand there are more to come, they are a natural result of your spiritual development.

I will end with this quote from Deepak Chopra: “According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.”

As always thanks for reading and have a great day and week….M….A Pearl-Seeker like you.  Thanks to Ajay and Rosie for their comments on Facebook and everyone else for their votes. Happy Easter to all of you celebrating Easter today.