Going beyond "Regular Serendipity" to "Spiritual Serendipity"
By Richard Eyre

Editor's note: Richard Eyre continues to welcome your feedback and inputs regarding his concept of the Three Deceivers and the Three Alternatives. Write to him at Richard@meridianmagazine.com . Tell him if you would be interested in receiving a copy of his book, written in Serendip (Sri Lanka), called Serendipity of the Spirit.

Spiritual Serendipity

Even though it is best understood after understanding "regular" serendipity, (and best applied by one who has learned to apply regular serendipity) spiritual serendipity is something completely different — a separate and higher form that is different not only in degree, but also in kind.

In regular serendipity, our awareness comes through perceptions of our senses and through the light of education, great books, great minds, and our own feelings.

In spiritual serendipity, our awareness comes through the perception of our spirit and through the light of scripture and prophets. The nudges and impressions we experience come from the Holy Ghost.

Just as the quality itself is higher, so is the method and process of pursuit higher (and harder). But it is worth all the effort we can give, because the rewards of spiritual serendipity, simply and straightforwardly put, are light and life, guidance and glory.

Definition of Terms (higher words for a higher quality)

• Spiritual Serendipity: A quality or gift that, through sagacity of both senses and spirit, and through the grace of God, allows one to ask for and receive guidance, inspiration, confirmation, and knowledge (even hidden knowledge) relative to his purpose, his family, his helping of others, and his day-to-day activities.
• Gift: Although regular serendipity is a gift from ourselves, spiritual serendipity is a gift from God. Since it relies on powers and perceptions beyond our own, it can be given only by that higher power. Still. it is we who determine whether we obtain the gift, because it is freely given to all who desire it and do what it requires.
• Sixth Sense: All sensitive individuals, especially those with the added insights of the Restored Gospel, recognize that the five senses are not their only source of knowledge or information. We can tune into nudges, impressions, and insights (which are better called inspiration). Our sixth sense consists of the feelings of our spirits.
• Nudges: Impressions that come to our minds via our spirits and from the Spirit.
• Tuning In: Like a faint radio signal, nudges can be tuned in and amplified until they become clear and spiritually audible.
• Bridge: Just as regular serendipity is a bridge between our structured and spontaneous selves, spiritual serendipity is a bridge between our goals and God's will. It is also a bridge between the inspiration we receive during prayer or planning and the nudges that come later on the spur of the moment.
• Foreordination: In the Restored Church, we have the unique belief that we were each foreordained, or spiritually commissioned, to accomplish particular missions while here on earth. It has been indicated that those who find and fill their foreordinations will have that fulfillment in the hereafter as their greatest reward. Those who do not may have that failure as their "greatest embarrassment."
• Ask: We are given (both as a privilege and as an admonition) the opportunity to ask God for personal guidance. Asking, because of the power it connects us to, should be undertaken soberly and cautiously and with submission to God's will and wisdom.

I had one missionary under my direction who was partial to (and gifted in) statistics and mathematics. He took delight in asking me questions he knew I couldn't answer. One day he said, "President, what do you think is the most frequently repeated admonition in scripture?" I guessed that it was something to do with love. "No," he said. "The most frequent admonition is to ask."

I've thought about that a great deal. Why would it be such a recurrent theme? Why is God so anxious that we ask, that we knock — and so consistent in promising us that He will answer?

I think I'm understanding it better now, as my first children grow old enough to leave home. I want them to be individuals, to be independent and free, but I also have a lot of advice I want to give them, and know I'll still feel that way after they're gone. If they'll ask, I'll be able to give help and counsel that won't undermine their independence or their freedom. If they ask, it will be their initiative, not mine.

God, who has made a total commitment to our agency, (and designed a world to provide us with it) nonetheless remains a loving Father, caring for us and desiring to give to us. To do so without invitation would constitute interference and rob us of agency. No wonder, then, that He asks us so often to ask!

• Confirmation: God has not only asked us to ask, He has told us how to ask. To Oliver Cowdery, in the ninth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, he said it was necessary not only to ask but also to "study it out" in our minds. Elsewhere in scripture, the Brother of Jared had a better result when he molted stones from the mountain and asked God to light them than when he simply asked for light. Like a wise father who says, "I'll not do your homework for you, but I'll check and correct it with you after you do the work," God says, in essence, "Use your agency in working out your own best decisions and then bring them to me for confirmation." Confirmation is the warm, calm, sure feeling by which we know our decision is right. Absence of that feeling is the "stupor of thought" that tells us we must work through the decisions again.

• Inspiration: God's communication with man. It comes sometimes in the form of confirmation and answers to our requests, as guidance as we pray and plan. It comes at other times in quick nudges and impressions; and tiny, soft, fleeting suggestions to our spirits.

• Sprit: When we talk about "serendipity of the spirit" what we really mean is serendipity of the soul, because "the spirit and the body are the soul of man," and the fullest form of serendipity involves both the senses of the body and the guidance and inspirations of the spirit.

Poetic Overview

As with regular Serendipity,
spiritual serendipity cannot be completely defined
with words
(because more than a word it is a feeling).
Words are useful only if they generate some image or glimpse
of the feeling.
Spiritual serendipity is the soft, sweet submission
of spirit,
a conscious dependency on the Lord, a decision to
"rely alone upon the merits of Christ." (Moroni 6:4)

It is the righteous, rigorous realization of the fact
that when it comes to long-range planning,
life is too complex for our own calculations
(thus the goal of a guided life — guided
by a higher, more comprehensive source)

Spiritual serendipity is sunshine,
which lights and reveals
what would otherwise be dark and unnoticed.
It is the excitement and intrigue of a great game
in which we ask questions and make requests
and then try to summon the sensitivity necessary
to recognize the answers
which come sometimes in disguise
and often with much softness and subtlety.

Because the spirit gives life and light to the body,
spiritual serendipity transmits to and effects our every part.
Parley P. Pratt spoke of a force with could
"Adapt itself to all our organs or attributes.
It quickens all the intellectual faculties;
increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies
all the natural passions and affections.
...It inspires, develops, cultivates, and matures all
the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings,
and affections of our nature.
It inspires virtue,
kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness, and charity.
It develops beauty of person, form, and features.
It tends to health, vigor, animation, and social feeling.
It invigorates all the faculties
of the physical and intellectual man.
It strengthens and gives tone to the nerves...it is...
joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and
life to the whole being."

Elder Pratt also compared the spirit with electricity,
explaining how it could warm and light
those who, as pure conductors,
let it enter them.

The metaphor of electricity
(dramatic then because electricity was so new)
is perhaps even more profound now that electricity is everywhere
present
and always at our disposal.

The spirit of God, into which we can "plug" ourselves,
is always there and always here. The circuitry is complete.
No new line ever has to be gerry-rigged to answer
our asking
or meet our needs.

We simply must understand how to plug in.
When we do, the world, along with ourselves,
is transformed.

The power of God's spirit, transmittable to ours,
is so vast.
And its vastness alone, like a slow, sweeping river
turning a water-wheel generator,
makes it peaceful and calm, easy while strong.

We plug in with a three-prong plug of awareness:
First, a prong of sensual awareness
that reveals opportunity, need, and deep reality to us
through our five senses.
Second, a prong of spiritual awareness,
a knowing both of our own spiritual selves and
of a higher spirit,
together with an in-tuneness that pulls us to prayer.
Third, a prong of attitudinal awareness
that allows us to expect discoveries of interest and joy;
to savor the surprises of sense and spirit.
It is the attitude herein called spiritual serendipity,
adopted into our souls,
which calms us, opens our vision,
and sweeps us into the currents of light.

We pursue serendipity of the spirit, then,
by developing awareness
through the senses,
through the spirit,
and through an attitude that values, cultivates,
and inter-connects the two.

A major tenet of our religion is eternal progression
(defined as becoming more like God).
It could be well-argued that the accumulation
of additional awareness
is synonymous with progress...
and that the difference between God and men,
vast as it is,
is essentially a difference in awareness.

We may be ready now for a clearer, simpler definition
of spiritual serendipity:

It is the aware, submissive, and sensitive condition
of our spirits which makes them susceptible
to the calm, the light, the peace, and the power
of His spirit.