Divine Intervention
A while back, I had a big crisis of faith, I was doing a lot of reading and thinking about things, and I realized that in the absence of proof, the logical assumption is that there are no "divine" force out there, specifically no "fate" if you will. This was a complete 180 for me, as I have always been comfortable with my relationship with the divine. As a matter of fact, I college I spent a summer hitchhiking the west coast specifically to put myself in the hands of the great spirit (as I referred to the divine in those days). There was no logical basis for my decision, but it felt right, so I did it.
Anyway, my world had been thrown into turmoil as I suddenly lost all of the safety nets I had spent my life creating for myself. Specifically, I have always been incredibly lucky; some of the most crushing blows I could have been dealt in life turned out to be incredibly beneficial. I attributed this to my relationship with the divine, i.e., I did good, and good things would happen, even if they initially looked bad at first. However, suddenly that went away, if there was no "divine" or "fate" then I was just plain lucky, and that luck could go away at any moment. This scared me horribly. I made a conscious decision to stay true to the oaths I had made, as I deemed these oaths part of myself anyway, and good to stick to. Don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this.
The crisis of faith passed, as they are wont to do, and I remain true to the divine as I understand it these days, specifically, I remain true to my patrons (Tyr and Thor specifically), and as such, to many of the Heathen ways.
This past month we have had a number of minor crises that all culminated into a big "uh oh" moment. The business, which had been doing incredibly well was suddenly in freefall. In one month, we lost almost $10k. A client came to us with a sob story, and aked to be let out of the contract and get a refund, and I allowed it. We finally talked to a CPA and found out we were miscalculating our tax payments. Another client turned out not to be qualified, so we had to refund her money. Things were looking bad, and I was seeing a string of "purposeful" bad luck. That is to say, sometimes when I'm being beaten over the head by fate, I get the feeling someone is trying to tell me something. This was definitely one of those times. But still I couldn't figure it out.
Last weekend was Trothmoot; a nationwide gathering of heathens. I wasn't in the best mood, and planned to spend the entire time wasted. Never one to back down from my plans, I promptly set about achieving my goals. I apparently had entire conversations in the middle of the afternoon that I don't remember. I didn't do any workshops, didn't really attend any services, basically just sat there at my table the entire weekend barely holding onto consciousness.
Time comes for Grand Sumbel, which to you non heathens would be the equivalent of "very holy church service"... not just your average Sunday Mass, but one of those important services. I wasn't planning on attending, but circumstances consired against me, so I found myself in Grand Sumbel, completely wasted. Not a problem, I wasn't doing anything for the ritual, the only thing I would have to do is say my little bit over the horn when it was my turn, hail the boys, confirm my oaths, and sit back down.
So the horn comes around to me, I stand up, say my piece and sit down. Then I realize that I had failed to confirm my oath. Now, I'm still wasted enough to feel bad about this instead of shrugging it off as a simple omission like I would have if I was sober. I don't remember much of what else was said afterwards, because I was checking in with Tyr, as it was slowly dawning on me that I had bent oath... I had not broken oath, and if it was any other God they probably wouldn't have cared, but it's Tyr, and he had some words for me.
My oath to Tyr, all flowery prose removed is simple. To help the folk, be it by providing actual aid or a swift kick in the ass. If I break the oath, I offer myself up to the Gods (specifically Tyr) for whatever punishment they see fit. I can already see the Heathens in the crowd wincing. Yeah, you should have heard what the people around me said when I was discussing taking the oath with them.
This ends up being a pretty nasty serious oath, and has required some pretty uncomfortable stuff. One of the folk was going through a nasty divorce, and money was tight so this person didn't know if they'd be able to keep their car. My oath kicks in, and I suddenly have to loan them my car for an unspecificed amount of time to this person whom I had actually only met a few times. Heh, ask me how happy my wife was with this. But, I did it, and didn't hesitate, because my oath also allows me to have what most people would consider a dream job, and any number of other boons. But I digress.
A month or two back, one of the folk contacted me with a halfhearted request for a somewhat onerous task. I checked in with them for the specifics, and then checked in with Tyr to make sure my read of the situation was correct. No I didn't have to accede to the request, but I did have to provide a gentle kick in the ass, pointing out what they could have done differently, and should do in the future. Of course, it was going to be hard for me to provide this gentle kick in the ass because these are also my friends, and have a lot on their plate as well. So I manage to put the entire incident out of my mind, and never provide the kick that I should have.
All of this comes crashing back to me during Sumbel. I haven't broken my oath, according to Tyr, but I can also not boast that I am holding true to it. It was a venial sin for you Catholics out there. The compensation becomes clear to me. A) I have to provide the gentle kick in the ass that I've promised, and B) No intoxicants for the rest of June. I went back and forth a fair amount on this one. For those of you who have never been to a pagan festival, getting trashed is almost expected. At many gatherings, they actually have awards for the person who gets the most "spectacularly" drunk. So to suddenly find out in the middle of a festival that you have to stop everything is a little weird. I kept trying the "ok, how about after this festival" defense, but to no avail. So to suddenly have someone who has been plastered all weekend suddenly saying they can't drink when the horn is passed is definitely a little weird, but whatever.
So here I am stuck not doing anything in June, but I have to be true to the Gods, 'cause that's just who I am. I tell Wendy what's going on, what the conversation was, and she supports me, though is also a little suprised that I get no reprieve until the end of the gathering, but oh well.
So the weekend ends, and we go back to the daily grind. Money is tight, we're worried about making all of the assorted payments, etc. Except suddenly, we're not. Three clients whom we had given up on MONTHS ago suddenly call us up out of the blue, and tell us they are interested, is the contract still the same, etc. Since Trothmoot, we've had FIVE people either sign up or tell us they are signing up. Hell, we had two TODAY, both of whom were clients we were pursuing months ago, and had all but given up on. Keep in mind, our client base is low, two clients is basically what we need per month to pay our bills. We've had FIVE express interest since trothmoot, one has already signed up, and two more said they would be faxing their agreements today.
So I walk in to Wendy's office this morning, still trying to figure out how to plan for the business. I like things being logical. I'm trying to create some rough algorithms for how to stay on track for the business. Ok, so when we send out emails to X number of clients, we get Y calling in to find out more about the business, from number Y, Z actually sign up within that same time period, with each variable being a subset of the previous variable, i.e., Y will always be a percentage of X, Z will always be a subset of Y, etc. So then we figure out what the value of X needs to be to get an acceptable value for Z to pay the bills. Well, let's now see if we can add a fourth variable, Q to stand for the "pipeline" business; clients from previous values of Y who return after months to become Zsub 2 (I dunno how to do subscripts for LJ). So I'm trying to figure out all this stuff, and Wendy hits the nail on the head. "There are too many variables we can't account for. Specifically, divine intervention is not something you can plug into an equation."
Oh, yeah. I forgot about the whole not drinking and motivation thing. The next time I saw the friend who I was supposed to provide the nudge to I did so, and I'm not drinking or anything this month, so I'm apparently back on Tyr's good side, and he takes care of his own.
I was just struck this morning by how weird all this is. Heh, and another client just sent in a services agreement. Heh, that makes six clients since Trothmoot.
/edited to add, we had a completely new person contact us and send us the agreement today, bringing the total up to seven