"Something good happened to me and I didn't expect it." That's serendipity. It is somewhat like "manna falling from above," being surprised by joy because of some undesired, but desirable, blessing. The good news is that a person can live a life that is highly serendipitous...filled with unexpected benefits.

Serendipity is a good word to know because it is about a special good or surprise bonus and we would all do well to know about it.
"Webster's Dictionary" defines serendipity as "the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." "The Random House Dictionary" defines serendipity as "The faculty for making desirable discoveries by accident." It was Horace Walpole who so named a faculty possessed by the heroes of a tale called "The Three Princes of Serendip" (Serendip + ity). But serendipity is not nearly so much a discovery by accident as it is a find orchestrated by providence. It is not intuition, mother's wit, luck, not even good luck, coincidence, will power, knowledge, wisdom, skill, courage, truth, faith, hope or love.
Serendipity is a factor that consists of both "inner ability" and "cosmic connection" which produces personal good that is unexpected and which does not result from any direct effort or planning. It is as if some unanticiapted positive delight occurred during a propitious moment in a person's life from which he derives high meaning. The blessing received may be ordinary or extraordinary, private or public, but it is always personal.
An example of serendipty in my own life occurred duirng my late teens when I was a soldier in the United States Army. Black and white soldiers and some white civilians were fighting in a town near an Army base where black soldiers were discriminated against in the town's restaurants. On this particular night when a near race riot erupted in the town an Army Chaplain talked with a group of black and white soldiers who were fueding and fuming as their emotions went wild. Then, as the soldiers began to disperse the Chaplain looked into my eyes and said, "I would like for you to serve as my assistant (called Chaplain's Assistant).
Subsequently, I became his Assistant. Later I became interested in the ministry, pastor of a church and a kingdom minister, a community- activist minister, in contrast to a pastor of a church. The ministry for over a half century has provided me with unique opportunities, challenges and compensations that included higher compensations than this world could give. And, I attribute these things, to no small degree, to the serendipity that came to me through a military Chaplain who on that night when I was vengeance-possessed and faced with what appeared to be imminent confinement in the stockade invited me to serve as his Chaplain's Assistant.
Serendipity is a miracle of life. But it is not just a single miracle to be experienced once in a lifetime. A person may experience serendipity again and again and again. Indeed, one's life may be saturated with serendipity. Most certainly, mine has been.
While it appears that everyone has this serendipitous factor or capacity most people do not actually experience serendipity with any degree of frequency in their lives. For most people it happens rarely, less than does a peak experience. Of course, serendipity and peak experience can be synonymous, at least some of the times.

Why then do most people, even though they possess serendipty as a latent or dormant factor, fail to experience it? There are three obvious reasons for this lack of mainfested serendipty in the lives of people.
1. Our expectations. Expectation is an enemy of serendipity. Not being attuned to... or governed by rules, needs, and wants, serendipity is suppressed or denied expression by expectations. Because expectations involve obsession, intensity, determination and demand, they prevent serendipity from manifesting itself or, should it occur, the expecting person may not be aware of it. B. S. Rajneesh stated a truth that is worthy of our acceptance when he said, "Expect nothing, get ready for everything." Be ready especially for serendipity.
2. We must know. Our need to know, at all cost, by whatever means necessary, instantly, if possible, is a second enemy of serendipity. Driven or pulled by the need to know we fabricate the truth, distort reality, and embrace illusions, all in the name of "our right to know" or, even worse, con ourselves and declare that "we know" when we do not know. A test question to ask yourself: Do I know how many apples there are in an apple seed even after I have counted the seeds in an apple?
I recall that when I was a boy I heard an elderly preacher, in his nineties, say, "I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future." At that time I felt that he had to know much about a lot of things to have survived so long and so well. But over the years it has become increasingly clear to me that to know is not life's supreme or most essential asset. To be in the Cosmic Process is the true purpose of life and it should be the supreme attraction of human beings who dare to live in keeping with their humann-divine nature. Our desperate demand to know only serves to broaden the gap between the unknown and the known and supports polarities which produce destructiveness rather than unity which promotes health.
3. Living in the past or future. Not living in the now where all present reality exists we hitch on to the past or fantasize about the future. We are bound to the past by guilt and frightened of the future by anxiety. These two debilitating forces, guilt and anxiety involving us so all-encompassingly - with yesterdays and tomorrows prevent - and even greater power love from manifesting itself in present reality, the only place in which it operates. And to the degree that love is suppressed serendipity is denied. Yet, serendipity, as we have said, is not love even though it travels the love way.
Serendipity is not for a special person or group or privileged people. It is a gift from the Creator that is available to everyone. In a real sense the gift of life itself is serendipity. Knowing that serendipity is that consciousness which enables a person to detect and receive good gifts that come his way, gifts that do not result from any effort of his own and come while he aimlessly drifts in life's process without any purpose other than having an awareness that he has a right to be himself and for no other reason than he wants to be and feels good in just being himself, should enable a person to experience serendipity. It is also signficant to realize that receiving, not giving, is an essential characteristic of the realization of serendipity.
Serendipity is not something we strive for or work at. Working at serendipity does not work. It is at that point of one's existence when he is most surrendered and at ease, most adrift in the Cosmic Process, and most in a state of oneness with All - all that is and all that is not (Being and Nothingness) that he is surprised by joy...the gift of serendipity.
Let me reiterate: the entire universe unites with the person whose serendipitous disposition or tendencies are not blocked by the enemies of serendipity which I have enumerated above in a benevolent act to bestow upon him an "uncommon good" which does not conform to cause and effect and which comes into existence without the recipient having any fore-knoweldge that he will receive such blessing or gift. What can we say? Wow!

(A song)
(Refrain)
Something good is goin' to happen to you, happen to you, happen to you.
Something good is goin' to happen to you: Serendipity is coming your way.
1. Expect nothing just be ready to receive your good, Unmerited and unexpected blessings await you.
2. We are flowing in the river of freedom and grace, Unsuspected and beautiful surprises will greet you.
3. Divine love says that no good thing will be kept from you, Oh precious one who, in living love attracts miracles.

(To order your copy of lead sheet music for the song, "Something Good is Coming Your Way," send a stamped self-addressed envelope and six additional postal stamps to:

Uriah J. Fields
P. O. Box 4770
Charlottesville, VA 22905

Copyright 2003 by Uriah J. Fields