Chapter 26 - These Go To Eleven
Coincidence Speaks
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Happy Friday Saturday friends! Welcome to Chapter 26 of Coincidence Speaks. As always, chapters are crafted so they can be read on a standalone basis. For the full experience head this way to start at the beginning!↩️
Eyes opened. An image coalesced into focus. An index finger rested right in the middle of a single passage.
Paul nearly fell out of the church pew when he saw where it was pointing.
“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”
Onward and upward to Chapter 26…
Chapter 26
These Go To Eleven
The feedback loops weren’t messing around anymore, and neither was Paul. The first thing on the office agenda that next Monday morning was setting up an automatic 10% draft into a new tithing account.
He hadn’t even talked to Clara about it yet. After his last utter fiasco of trying to explain the inexplicable, how would she possibly react to this latest insanity, Biblically sanctioned or otherwise? This was going into uncharted territory, even for Paul.
He shuddered a little, imagining how it would go: “Honey, yesterday in church an inner voice basically told me that it would be a good idea to start giving away all of our future savings.”
After hunting down the correct password from the thousands apparently required to navigate 21st century human life, he logged into the payroll/benefits website portal to set up the official autodraft.
“She should be fine with it anyways,” he rationalized. Wouldn’t she be happier with him staying put in his career and giving a small portion back, instead of forfeiting 100% of his earnings on some indefinite sabbatical?
A slot popped up on the screen asking to designate the specific percentage amount, so Paul put in 10.00%, to “honor the full tithe.” But as the cursor slid over to click “Confirm,” Paul hesitated. Something felt off.
The extra zeros after the decimal looked odd, out of place somehow.
A timeless quote from the movie Spinal Tap popped into his head: “These (amps) go to eleven.” 1
Paul was about 99% sure this was just his own regular thought process jutting in—movie quotes still rolled through rent-free all hours of the day. Definitely not some kind of mystical inner guidance system. But it was reminiscent of the inexplicably recurring 1’s from years ago, and beyond that, it just felt right somehow.
“Ah what the heck I’m already here—let’s just do it. All ones.”
“11.11%.”
<<Click>>
A subtle, almost inconsequential motion. A hardly discernable tap of an index finger. One tiny movement of the millions made every day.
Everything changed in an instant nonetheless.
Paul felt like a kid about to get his first ever allowance after years of thankless household chores. He couldn’t wait for that first 11.11% paycheck to come through.
All at once, every mundane interaction of the day became an opportunity to boost the trajectory of someone else’s week, month, or world. And he found himself naturally attuning to potential connections with people and organizations he could help and support.
His worldview expanded too. Suddenly Paul was no longer just raiding the internet to gather knowledge for his own benefit—he could now actively contribute by funding the people that fueled its fullest creation. The aspiring writers, the entrepreneurs, the change-makers, the idealists, all of the scientists and artists pouring themselves into their craft—the ones living out their highest calling regardless of whether it made money or not.
And he knew exactly where the first 11.11% was going before the first paycheck even hit his account.
He could feel it in her before she even began to speak. The young woman at the podium had it, the spark.
The dynamic personality addressing the fifty or so men and women in Paul’s Friday morning community club meeting radiated pure purpose. She had created a program as part of her PhD thesis which helped incarcerated inmates get back on their feet after parole, and after graduation transformed it into a multi-tiered non-profit organization which not only provided shelter, education, and job training, but also focused on lasting recovery by addressing childhood physical and emotional trauma programming—what Paul had come to know as the core underlying causes of addiction.
Paul was so impressed by her. How she’d completely aligned her vocation and her life with her heart’s higher calling. An unmissable inspiration placed right there on the podium in front of him.
So the day before the funds finally landed in his account, Paul reached out with an email letting her know how inspiring she was and the donation he intended to make. And as he finished up the email, that irrepressible Spinal Tap quote popped into his head once again:
“These go to 11.”
As he went to tap send a flash of movement tugged at the corner of his eye. It was the tiny computer clock, its pixel digits turning to 11:11am.
He laughed aloud. “Ha! Good stuff.” A nice little feedback loop amplifying his enthusiasm.
She responded back early that afternoon:
“Your timing could not be any better! Today is my birthday, and your unexpected gift has made it so special.”
The special timing for Paul, however, was when he noticed when her email response had arrived…
Exactly 1:11pm.
Goosebumps curled all the way up and down his spine, his chest area flooded with a rush of spontaneous warmth, and right then and there in his office, a powerful inner soundform came through:
“Check The Date Of Your First Impulse Around Tithing.”
Paul’s hands trembled a little as he leafed back through his journal. Because he already knew what the date would be.
It was, in actual fact, on January 11th.
1/11.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Paul shook his head in awe, collecting himself as best he could for the rest of the workday.
Thirty minutes later he was immersed in deep conversation with a coworker on pending business when his boss poked his head around the office door. He looked like a cat who’d swallowed a canary, which historically meant one of two things: there was either really good, or really tough news on the way.
“Listen—you guys worked hard last year and should be compensated for it. I just talked to the rest of the executive team and you’ll both be getting a bonus.”
Paul stared at him, speechless.
“It’ll hit your next paycheck.”
He hadn’t been expecting anything at all—due to ongoing merger issues, bonuses weren’t happening that year.
The bonus turned out to be exactly 10%. A full tithe—this time on Paul’s entire annual salary.
The verse from Malachi landed once more:
“And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”
He had placed his trust to the full test. And now 11.11% of the unexpected bonus he was getting would flow right back out into the world.
“This is way, way better than winning the lottery,” Paul gasped to himself in awe.
“You did ask to be hit over the head with it,” something within him agreed.
Spring and summer of his 38th year hummed by, and Paul was constantly amazed by the impact those paycheck pollinations could make just from his modest corner of humanity.
True to form, the 11.11% portions would flow exactly where they were most needed—all he had to do was pay attention to the subtle pull of daily life and feel where they wanted to go. He watched in awe as funds flowed out near and far, towards homegrown causes and charities, helping homeless in the streets, buying artwork online from a talented artist in the Netherlands who turned out to need that exact amount to make rent, even wiring funds to South America for direct medical assistance to a struggling family.
Clara was cautiously relieved.
She wasn’t altogether thrilled about the initial financial prospects of giving away their future personal savings, and the designated 11.11% percentage amount was pretty weird in and of itself. But she also couldn’t help but see the positive effect it was having, and especially how Paul was thriving in his career.
Paul had been newly promoted to Commercial Team Lead of his market at the end of summer, without even seeking out the position. The extra income from the promotion felt good, but it felt even better knowing that a chunk of the pay raise he’d just received would radiate out back into the world.
He pulled out his journal as the whisper of winter nudged at the thick stillness of summer’s end.
11.11% is going exponential. I’m making way more after tithing than I was in total just six months ago. It’s like the more I give without attachment, the more space opens up to receive.
And it all started when I came to terms with my unconscious fears around scarcity, my inner shadow—The Man on the Sidewalk.
“Plus the extra money is all the more evidence for Clara that I’m not crazy,” he thought, closing the pages with a satisfying thwump.
End Chapter 26
Chapter 27 of Coincidence Speaks will post next Friday. Thanks for being here in interactive real time! Comments and feedback always welcome.
In gratitude,
E.T. Allen
This is awesome… you “pay attention” so well not just here but through your thoughtful resonance with many more seasoned writers on Substack…again… there’s so much I want to say because you’re really getting to the crux of it but *reluctantly* need to keep letting the book do its own thing. Hopefully it will; only time will tell.
On that note, only three (potentially four) chapters to go!
“One tiny movement of the millions made every day.”