Peace, Walk, Now: Chapter 9, The Original Algorithm
Holy Spirit is not limited by space, or time, or algorithms. Holy Spirit Is the Original Algorithm.
January 2018 — Westlake Village, California
Previously I mentioned that I earned a Master’s degree from Pepperdine University. (Read Peace, Walk, Now: Chapter 4, Global Economics.)
Pepperdine is located in Malibu, California, just twenty minutes south of Westlake Village. At this turning point in my life, there was no way I could afford rent in that area. Not in Malibu, not in Westlake Village, not Camarillo where I was nannying, not even in Anchorage anymore. I was really lucky Marsha invited me to stay with her.
Per Marsha’s request that I make an effort to “get back on my feet” (mind you, because the dozens of career jobs I had applied to still had not contacted me), I got a second part-time job as a grocery bagger for Sprouts Farmers Market, which was within walking distance from Marsha’s house on Westlake Island.
So yeah, there I was in my late-30s… living in my friend’s spare room on a man-made island, with a college degree in my dossier, two years of law school, and an MBA. What an interesting turn of events to be bagging groceries at one of the places I used to really love shopping at. (On the plus side, now I had an employee discount, so I could still afford to shop there, sort of.)
This particular Sprouts happened to be the Sprouts closest to Malibu. So guess who I would run into every day?
Pepperdine students.
Pepperdine graduates.
Pepperdine professors.
People who also had MBAs from Pepperdine and were on the path of achieving super-duper success in life.
“You go to Pepperdine?” I chatted with someone in the Sprouts checkout line, simultaneously optimizing the best positioning strategy for their groceries, then gently placing them in the paper bag they were now paying $0.10 for.
“Yeah,” they responded, somewhat surprised, then looked down and remembered that they were wearing a Pepperdine hoodie.
“What are you studying?” I asked.
“I’m in the MBA program,” they said.
“Oh that’s great,” I said cheerfully. “It’s a wonderful program. I got an MBA from Pepperdine too.”
“You did?” Incredulous, the person seemed ready to run out of the store, but for a moment was too shocked to look away.
“Yeah,” I said. “Life happens. Have a nice day.”
The facade was starting to crack. I wanted to cling to it. I loved shopping at Trader Joes and Whole Foods and Sprouts and all the other fancy natural foods stores on the market. I wanted to shop there forever and live in beautiful paradise on the beach and have the fantasy dream life I always wanted. The dream life that has been heavily invested in, highly branded, and grotesquely marketed to us. ~ Peace, Walk, Now: Chapter 1, Part-Time Disruptor
A few weeks later, Marsha informed me that it was time for me to move out.
REFLECTION MOMENT:
Let’s all pause here for miracles.
As I shared with you, I had been asking for miracles for a few months now. And I was receiving them.
For example, the idea to bring cookies to the island security guards while I waited outside—sometimes for an hour—for Marsha to call the guards back so they could renew my visitor permit was itself a miracle. It might not look like a miracle on the surface, but this little idea wasn’t something someone taught me. It came to me “out of the blue” serving the precise function of alleviating what was otherwise an awful situation for me. The idea to bring cookies and tell jokes reshaped the humiliating experience into one that had a lasting impression on not only me, but the guards as well, who had possibly never witnessed something like that before.
Witnessing things like this changes peoples lives for the better.
This is what miracles offer.
Just because it wasn’t going to work out for me to stay with Marsha anymore didn’t mean that the Holy Spirit had forgotten about me. The miracle was still forming. And growing in size and quantity.
I knew 100% that the Holy Spirit would show me something else. The reason I knew this is because I made a choice to believe this over the alternative.
When I decided to leave Anchorage and move to Española, New Mexico to stay at a kundalini yoga ashram after my interview at Amazon (along with all of my other job applications) didn’t pan out, I was devastated.
I already mentioned this.
There are degrees of devastation. I felt like I was out of options and like I had nowhere else to turn.
Yet my dream about a dream about a dream showed up to show me something else.
Holy Spirit showed up to show me Something Else.
After this dream, I no longer chose to feel devastated. I no longer chose to feel like I had no place to turn. I made a choice to turn to Holy Spirit for advice on where to turn.
And I discovered that the Holy Spirit is always dreaming of offering the dream of awakening from the dream of sleep and devastation.
I think this is what the kids now refer to as meta.
Holy Spirit Is the Original Meta; Holy Spirit Is the Original Algorithm.
So here we go: Holy Spirit, I am willing to receive a miracle today.
Again and again and again.
