Last week, I wrote about Sharon’s special function CMPE and said that this week I’d write about the part that perhaps affected me most of all.

What happened is that towards the end of December, I finally wrote an interpretation of my original special function sign. As usual, all I did was take the parallels from that sign and apply them to the subject situation (what the sign is about), which was me sending out the Special Function Questionnaire, and on a larger level, me focusing on the special function in the Circle Course Community (CCC) that month. Here is what I came up with: 

It is right that I sent out the Special Function Questionnaire to the CCC, with its focus on the supremely important task of finding your special function. It is good that it includes looking back over your life for key indicators, identifying what you are good at and what work you find fulfilling (and have secretly dreamed of doing), as well as using what you have read and studied as clues. It is also good that it identifies blocks like self-doubt and the belief you don’t have the time. The sign seems to be a confirmation of the November special function focus in the CCC. 

All those lines about “it is good that it includes” are taken straight out of the parallels, the features that both events had in common. While I was writing this, my jaw started to drop. I began noticing just how similar this was to Sharon’s sign, which occurred 17 days later. Here is my interpretation of hers, which, again, was just me applying the parallels in that sign to the subject situation (her avoidance of the topic of special function): 

Instead of avoiding the topic of your special function, it is right that you listened to a spiritual teacher (1) address this topic of how to find the function (5) that God has assigned (6), the function that you are particularly suited to fulfill. Pay attention to the clues this teacher offers for how to find your special function: It will be something that you love doing-that you find fulfilling (7)-and that you are good at (8) (though others might see your abilities here better than you-9). It will be something that, in one form or another, has been a driving force in your life (10). It will be something you do for the love of it, not for the money (11). It will be your way of conducting a life of giving, a life that contributes to the whole (3), and thus of finding the fulfillment that comes from such a life (4). It will be your way of living out the teachings of Jesus (2). 

The two CMPEs are uncannily similar. You could say that I was the one who interpreted them both, so what’s the big deal—I just made sure they ended up looking similar. But that is why I just now stressed that my interpretations were a fairly mechanical affair of simply applying the parallels to the subject situation. The similarities are in the CMPEs themselves. Notice all the things they have in common: 

• Both speak of the importance of seeking one’s special function (“the supremely important task of finding your special function”; “Instead of avoiding the topic of your special function, it is right that…”)
• Both speak of your function being present in some form throughout your life (“looking back over your life for key indicators”; “a driving force in your life”)
• Both speak of what you find fulfilling as a key indicator (“what work you find fulfilling”; “something…that you find fulfilling”).
• Both speak of what you are good at as a key indicator (“what you are good at”; “something…that you are good at”).
• Both are in part about getting past the block of self-doubt (“blocks like self-doubt”; Sharon’s act of “avoiding the topic” was clearly related to self-doubt—all those comments about being too old).
• Both clearly focus on the Special Function Questionnaire (my sign was about that; the parallels in Sharon’s sign were really about the questionnaire, even though she listened to more than just that one class).
• Both are about members of the CCC benefiting from the Special Function Questionnaire and special function focus for November (my sign said “It is right that I sent out the Special Function Questionnaire to the CCC”; Sharon’s sign was showing someone in the CCC being influenced by the special function classes).

Finally, Sharon’s sign looked like the fulfillment of mine. Mine said it was beneficial to focus on the special function in the CCC. Sharon’s sign showed someone benefiting from that very focus. 

I was bowled over. How does this sort of thing happen—2 CMPEs happening to different people in different places at different times, yet looking so incredibly similar? I had to write to Sharon about it, and after explaining the similarities, here is what I said: 

I find this truly amazing. Our two signs were totally separate. One happened to me in Arizona on the 12^th; the other happened to you in Michigan on the 29^th. True, your sign involved, in part, the same class mine did. But nothing required you to have a sign about that class. And even if you had a sign, your second event could have focused on very different things. It could have focused on different items in the questionnaire, or on the other class—bypassing the questionnaire altogether. There is no earthly reason why your sign had to be so unbelievably similar to mine. One might claim that since I interpreted my sign after I did yours, I consciously or unconsciously shaped mine to fit yours. But that falls apart when you see that all I’ve done is take the parallels and turn them into an interpretation (which is the same thing I did with yours).

Why am I prattling on about this? The reason is that this phenomenon of different people’s signs speaking with the exact same voice is really my strongest piece of evidence for signs coming from God (or something God-like). If it weren’t for that fact, it would be more natural to assume they come from something that is individual to each of us. For instance, if mine said, “this special function topic is supremely important,” and your sign said, “this special function topic is totally bogus,” it would be very hard to see those signs as coming from the same place. You’d naturally think they were being generated by elements deep within two different individuals. 

But given the remarkable similarity of the two signs, it is hard to not see them as coming from the same place, as being two expressions of the same force or intelligence. Don’t they look like paintings by the same artist of the same scene on two different days? He even seems to be referencing his earlier painting with the later one. The earlier one looks like “It’s good for CCC members that you are doing this,” while the later one looks like “And here’s a CCC member for whom this was good.” 

Anyway, I’m writing all this to you because of your original e-mail about the signs book. There you really focused on these occurrences being evidence for God. You said that even if they never happened to you, just knowing they happened to someone provided you with that evidence. But, of course, it’s far better when that same evidence lands unmistakably in your own lap! The conclusion that God exists is obviously very different than the conclusion that God exists and is concretely working in one’s own life. 

This really seemed to crack the hard nut of Sharon’s doubt. She wrote back saying she was “blown away.” She said that since it was easier for her to trust my sign, the similarity between them made it easier to trust hers. Then she said what I’d wanted to hear: “I believe there really is something specific I am meant to do while I’m still here.  I’m still not sure what it is specifically, but I feel certain I will receive more guidance.” We agreed to work on it together. I feel sure we’ll get it cracked.