The Everyday Mystic

Redemption is such an exciting experience when it happens to me.  Redemption excites me and incites in me an incredibly grateful heart.  It makes me realize that I truly walk hand-in-hand with the Divine – just like you do, like each one of us do.  I hope that by sharing my story, you might awaken to the Divine’s redemptive power in your life. 

Through email yesterday, I received a sizable order for my book about the technical services industry, called Spectacular Support Centers (www.spectacularsupportcenters.com), from a company with whom I had a bad experience when I spoke at their conference several years ago.  Out of the blue, this company’s bookstore representative requested copies of my book to sell at their upcoming conference – the same conference that I had the bad experience in a previous year!  The enormous significance of this simple book order didn’t hit me until last night.  While packing the books for shipment, I suddenly put all the pieces together. 

This, I realized, is redemption in action!  It took me several months to get over the hurt and humiliation of the experience at that conference (I won’t share details, but suffice it to say that I am both a perfectionist and an obsessor, so when I’m humiliated, whether it was my fault or not, I obsess about it).  I was mad at myself and at the organization. In retrospect, both parties were equally at fault for whatever wrong was done. One of my regrets was that my angry response to the situation precluded any chance of working together again – neither party would have wanted that!  Or, perhaps, that was just my interpretation of it.

But – my book opened a neutral avenue for us to work together again, in a non-threatening, indirect way.  “This is a God-thing!” I almost shouted as I taped shut the box of books I was packing.  This is redemption.

Redemption.

  The word drips with religious overtones, some of which may have negative connotations to you.  If so, thanks for reading so far!  Here’s what I mean by redemption:  Redemption refers to forgiveness of past sins, a chance to start afresh with something or someone, to begin again anew.  To convert a situation infused with negativity to one suffused with possibility.  Redemption is springtime, when new life conquers the death and despair of winter. 

Redemption is possible in every situation.  Seek it.  Indulge it when it happens, but above all, be grateful for it when it graces your life.  That’s how I felt last night.

Prayer:

Oh God of Many Names, I am full of gratitude for your grace and the redemption you sent me.  Help me to know in my heart that redemption is always possible; indeed, it is a possibility that resides beneath the present illusion. Help all sentient beings recognize the joy of redemption in their lives. Amen.

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