M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E
Serendipity: A Deep Look at the Alternative
to the Paradigm of Control
By Richard Eyre
Publisher's note: For 12 columns during 12 weeks, Richard Eyre has outlined and defined “The Three Deceivers” of Control, Ownership, and Independence, and detailed how our obsessions with them can ruin the quality of our lives. Six weeks ago, we began the second phase of the column, with the new name “The Three Alternatives” and the attitude of Control was replaced with the approach of SERENDIPITY. Then the paradigm of Ownership was replaced with STEWARDSHIP and then new word and concept "SYNERGICITY" was introduced as the alternative to Independence. Now, over the next several weeks, Richard will explain and “flesh in” each of these three Alternatives in depth and explain their implications and their implementation in our everyday lives. Today’s column is the first of four in a row during the month of June that explore the Alternative of Serendipity. In July, the focus will shift to Stewardship and then in August to Synergicity. Richard continues to welcome your feedback and inputs. Write to him at Richard@meridianmagazine.com . If you missed any of the earlier columns in this series, you can go to the Deceivers Archive and the Alternatives Archive (see right sidebar) and catch up.
I have tried to make the case, in past columns, that a Serendipity attitude that looks for guidance is a far better and far happier way to approach life than a Control attitude that tries to rely mostly on self. Now, over the next four weeks, I have the opportunity to give you my own personal view of what Serendipity really is and what meaning it can have in our lives. Let me do that in a somewhat personal way, starting with some quotes from a journal I kept during the time I was discovering the quality and the attitude of Serendipity.
Quotes from my journal:
Let me quote from a journal I kept during my personal search for the meaning of serendipity. I had gone to Sri Lanka (which was anciently called Serendip) to research the word and to begin writing a book on it.
“As I write, I’m sitting on the veranda of my room in Sri Lanka, looking out through the jungle toward the beach, watching a man lead his elephant into the sea for a bath.
“Perhaps it is a rather extreme approach, but I’ve come here, halfway around the world, to a teardrop shaped island in the Indian Ocean to find the origin, and perhaps the deeper meaning, of my favorite word.
“Readers of some of my earlier books are acquainted with the word serendipity, the concept of “happy accidents,” and with my personal fascination with the word’s meaning and implications.
“Serendipity is an attitude of mind which can give us the means to move from where we are to where we want to be. More importantly, when we include spiritual input in its definition it can help us move from where we are to where God wants us to be.
“The word isn’t mine – it was coined by an 18th century British author named Horace Walpole. But you might say I have adopted it, and I dare say it has come to mean more to me (and to have more meanings to me) than it did to Walpole.
“I came to this ancient land which was once called Serendip, to write a book about serendipity; and I will begin it, after a brief forward, by telling you how Horace Walpole coined the word and about an old Persian fable called The Three Princes of Serendip which inspired him. I found the fable, one of the few copies left of it in the world, in the British Museum in London, and retranslated it into modern English. But before we get into that, let me make a comment, based in part on the perspective I feel as I look at our world from this far away place:
“Many Latter-day Saints, in the last years of the 20th century, live in a unique society and culture which is more challenging, more complex, and more competitive than any other.
“Compared to other people of other places and other times, our lives are bountiful, as well as busy, but they are almost always demanding and almost never predictable. No matter what course we choose, life is filled with surprises and unexpected turns in the road.
“The stress and frustration most of us feel traces both the demands and to the unpredictability. Just as we seem to have an idea of where we’re going or what we’re doing, something comes along (a crises, a calling, a challenge, a circumstance) and suddenly we’re in uncharted waters (and over our heads).
“The problems we face are too diverse to have a single answer – unless that answer is an attitude; an attitude that can give guidance to life, an attitude that can turn adversity into advantage, impatience into insight, competition into charity, boredom into beauty – and attitude called serendipity of the spirit.”
It is fashionable today to be in control, in charge, to plan and manage and even manipulate. We like to say, “act, don’t react.”
But the fact is that we know so little and control so little. Surprises happen everyday. And there are so many big things and so many small things over which we have no control.
The fact is that, on our own, we don’t know enough about the future, or about those around us, or even about ourselves, to choose very consistently what is best for ourselves and best for others.
But there is a higher intelligence. Within the Lord’s Gospel we know much of His mind and His will. And we know of the Holy Ghost which prompts and guides through small, sometimes hard-to-notice feelings and insights that we call nudges, or impressions, or intuitions, or inspirations.
Serendipity of the spirit is an attitude that increases our receptivity to this purer intelligence. With it, we can discard the futile goal of a totally self-managed life and adopt the goal of a guided life.
Inserted comment from Linda Eyre
My husband, Richard, you need to understand, is intrigued by somewhat weird, rather obscure words. I told him that serendipity sounded more like a band or a singing group than a book or a column on Meridian -- and spiritual serendipity sounds like a tongue twister or maybe a gospel singing group.
I told him he ought to call this Alternative Receptivity to Intuition or Inspiration because that's really what it is about. Or, if he insisted on a poetic title, how about Gaining Guidance or Discovering and Discerning Deep or Divine Direction.
Actually, Richard's fascination with serendipity began during our courtship and peaked about the time of our first child's birth. Richard wanted to call her "Serendipity" but I dissuaded him with the observation that kids might call her "Dipity." Still, the best I could get was a compromise and we named her Saren. Except that everyone calls her Sara or Sharon, I guess that has worked out fine. I remember we got one baby shower gift which was an embroidered blanket labeled "Saren Wrap." I'm just glad it wasn't a boy or Richard would have wanted to name him after the English author who coined the word serendipity -- Horace Walpole.
Seriously though, bear with Richard and his strange terminology. I've come to appreciate the word almost as much as he does. It means, at least in this book, a lot of powerful things and stands for a way of living (and a way of thinking) that is thrilling in terms of what it does to our day-to-day lives.
I think what Richard is doing in his writing about serendipity is something of a "sandwich" format. He writes and last about what spiritual serendipity can do for those who obtain it. The "meat" is the middle, in these next few columns, and consists of definitions of the word and solid suggestions about how people can gain the quality of spiritual serendipity and through it become more receptive, more aware, and more joyful individuals.
Also, while I'm talking about Richard's "weirdness," let me mention his writing style. Sometimes he writes poetry and sometimes he writes prose. And sometimes, as in the columns you are about to read, he writes some of each and mostly something that is a combination of the two. Still other times, he tells a story, usually about a personal experience, and puts a box around it. I think you will like the broken lines and the stories and the stingy use of words. It is all rather appropriate in this kind of book where Richard is suggesting ideas and feelings that we all have had before. He is drawing out of our minds things that we already knew but had not yet connected...so that we will read a few words and say "ah ha."
Anyway, I have enjoyed discussing this column with my husband as he has written. I recommend it to you, but then I can't be objective, can I? So read it and see what you think, or better put, see if his ideas give you some exciting new ways of thinking.
--Linda J. Eyre
The Plight, the Problem and the Promise
The Plight
(of those who live in our world)
On this emerald green, high-mountained island in
the
indigo-blue Indian Ocean
("Sri Lana" means resplendent isle)
workers are fortunate if they earn
100 rupees per week (just under $4.00)
With that (and the fish the catch or the rice they grow)
they feed large families.
Yet, as in many poor parts of the world,
faces reflect more joy than discouragement.
Nowhere have I seen a higher ration
of smiling, open faces,
childlike in the positive sense that they
never look away from your glance. Their own glances are
layered with light.
Faces that look out at you with no self-consciousness
and invite you to look right back in.
The concerns here are as simple as they are severe
food to eat, a roof and shelter in the monsoon season,
some health care and education for the children.
Sri Lankans are an intelligent, joyful people.
Most returning tourists come back as much for the people
as for the perfect beaches
and cool, jungle mountains.
Because the pace is slow, and the contrasts vivid,
(and because my word was born here)
this is a good place to think
about the Three Princes and Horace Walpole
(we'll get to them in a minute).
And it's an especially objective, clear-perspective place
form which to look back and think about our world,
yours and mine,
the world of Western civilization closing in
on the 21st Century...
and the world of the restored Gospel and it's
attendant culture.
Our world
is boisterously busy!
(and confusingly complex).
Options, opportunities, and obligations proliferate and grow
like grass
and our problems stem from surplus rather than scarcity.
Our windows
(they're still rectangular and made of glass but
we turn them on and off with a switch
and change their view with a wireless remote)
show us our competitors and make us materialistic,
conjuring new wants and then
disguising them as needs.
We find that
trying to do it all and have it all and be it all
won't work.
Because there's not time, In fact, there's rarely time for any
"choose to dos" and the red tape
and responsibilities
swallow up the tiny time allotment of the every day.
We try to prepare, to prioritize, and to plan.
We make our lists and try to control the events
that swirl around us,
but nothing ever goes quite as we planned.
Impediments and interruptions knock us off course
and turn our planners into testaments of our failures.
Work and family and personal needs jerk at each
other
like a three-way tug of war.
We look around us
and try for comfort (or at least company) in the fact
that everyone has the same stress, the same frustration,
the same unbalance.
But sometimes we lose even that comfort when we realize
that we not only live in the world,
we live in the Church!
The Added Plight
(of those who live in this Church)
The gospel comforts us, reassures us, tells us
Where we’re headed
And fills our hearts with hope
And our intellect with insight and light.
But the Church
Adds
To our lives another whole set of righteous responsibilities
And enlarged expectations
Which need balancing –
Another priority, another clump of commitments,
Another ball-to-juggle-that-can’t-be-dropped.
Brigham Young said we are a peculiar people.
We might add (as we compare ourselves
With the world around us) that:
The combination of
Busyness, competitiveness and seriousness,
Depending on the ratios of the mix and the other ingredients,
Can be a recipe for frustration
Or for depression
Or for guilt.
Part of the problem is that,
Woven in and wound around the accepted thinking
Of both our society and our Church is
The dangerously stiff and brittle thread
Of quantity.
We measure (and are measured)
More by how much we do
Than by how well we do it;
More by explicit external exhibit
Than by invisible internal insight;
More by our breadth
Than by our depth
More on our doing and our getting
Than on our being;
More on quantity
Then on quality.
Leadership is often thought of more
As a reward of recognition
Than as a stewardship of service.
And we sometimes reserve our religious respect
For those who run things with administrative talent,
And planned programs;
Forgetting or under-valuing less visible gifts
Like sensitivity, spontaneity,
And even charity.
So how do we change this system, this society?
We don’t!
What we change is our susceptibility to it,
Our stereotyped subscription to its standard,
Our dependence on its approval.
What we change is
Ourselves.
And the tool that turns and times the transition
Is something this book calls
Serendipity of the spirit.
The Problem
(of our time, our place, and our culture)
Besides being a busy people, a competitive
people,
And a sometimes over-serious, frustrated and guilty people,
We are a people with a unique belief
In a personal Heavenly Father, in a pre-mortal life,
And in foreordination – the notion that God has given
Each of us
A unique and individual potential destiny.
And we are a people free and mightily blessed
With almost limitless variety and diversity,.
Compared with our forefathers,
We can choose among so many different lifestyles,
So many different causes,
So many different places to live.
With all these blessings, how can we be
Frustrated or confused?
Surprise: it is because of all we have
That many are perplexed.
Higher expectations demand higher performance.
Higher standards demand higher effort.
Higher knowledge demands higher understanding.
These expectations, standards, and knowledge
Lead us inevitably to the questions of how and why.
How do we discover our foreordinations?
How do we get the regular guidance from God
That can conform our lives to His will?
How can we know if we are “climbing the right mountain?”
Why is it so difficult to set acceptable long-range goals?
How can we be disciplined and structured
And yet retain our spontaneity and flexibility?
How can we have “outer success” (job, career)
And “inner success” (family, character, etc)?
How do we handle life’s surprises and unpredictability?
How do we raise our children
In such a confused and complex world?
What kind of questions are these?
They are the root questions
Of life!
On their answers hang our happiness here
And our station in the hereafter.
The whole list of questions can almost be compacted
Into one:
How can we request and receive
The direction Heavenly Father has for us?
Think of the overwhelming ramifications of that
question –
In terms of our views and visions of God and of ourselves:
First: We view an unlimited, personal Heavenly Father,
Loving us, foreordaining us, wanting us
To learn and return…
Wanting to guide us, prompt us, enlighten us…
But committed to our agency,
Thus not interfering, not taking the initiative from us.
Second: We view our very limited selves,
Operating under a veil, aware of only a tiny percentage
Of variables, knowing too little
To sort out our own destiny and make key decisions
Without His guidance.
Life, in this context, is not so much about
our own skills
or our ability to schedule and scheme and sort out our
destinies.
Instead it is about out receptivity
And our own ability to request and receive light.
Our problem, then, is how to rise above
The “usual norms” of life…
…the usual treadmill of comparing and competing
…the usual pattern of praying deeply and earnestly only
In crisis or in the face of very big decisions;
…the usual life of essentially drifting into things,
Letting circumstances and envy and paths of least resistance
Decide our direction
Instead of shafts of light from above.
The Promise
(Spiritual Serendipity: What it Does)
This part of this column is about an attitude
–
An attitude that can change the way we see life
And the way we live life.
It is an attitude that involves new awareness,
New approaches,
And a fresh answer
To the deepest and oldest personal questions
Of how personal guidance is obtained.
We ask: How do we avail ourselves of the
Insight, impressions, intuitions, inspirations
That our belief in a personal God tells us must be possible?
“Ask for it” goes the short answer (and the good answer).
But to be effectual,
Asking must be accompanied by an awareness,
An approach, an attitude
That helps us ask the right questions and then
Hear (and see)
The unexpected answers.
The attitude can be easily named, but will take
This whole book
To explain.
It is Serendipity of the Spirit.
Spiritual serendipity is not a program
Or a technique or a method
Or “six steps” or a “sequence of actions.”
It’s not about how to do something
Or even about what to do.
In fact,
It doesn’t have to do with doing.
It has to do with
Being.
And the changes it advocates are not out in our actions.
But in, in our spirits.
A new attitude, deeply understood, does more than change
What we do. It becomes a part of us and thus
It changes who we are.
Serendipity of the spirit requires shifts in
our paradigm
Or world-view.
It suggests a new way of looking at ourselves,
Our world,
And our relationship with the Being who made both.
The attitude holds forth promises so grand
That their mere mention breeds skepticism.
But they are mentioned anyway (listed in fact)
In the hope that your “keep reading” interest
(or at least your curiosity)
Will grow faster than your “stop reading” skepticism.
Spiritual serendipity, besides opening you to greater guidance
And incremental inspiration, can:
Now, forgive me for telling what Serendipity of
the Spirit
Does
Before I get more deeply into what it is…
But the latter will take a while,
In fact,
It will take the next four columns.
Publishers closing note: Would you like to have a copy of the book on Serendipity of the Spirit that Richard wrote in Sri Lanka? Drop him a quick e mail (to Richard@meridianmagazine.com) if you are interested. If there is enough interest, he will arrange for a batch of the books to be made available to Meridian readers at a special price. The discussion of Serendipity will continue here in this column next week.
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