called by name

I was privileged to be at a friend's ordination last evening. It was beautiful and inspiring and made me think of calling. Am I called? What am I called to do? This post comes closest to what I can define right now - my most clearest calllings for this phase of my life are to tend the hearth here at home, and to give voice to stories.

But it is hard for me to sometimes claim these as callings. Or to even think that I COULD be called. Because maybe only others get called, or get talked to by divine beings. Not me.

If I search deep enough, I can feel it though. Only in the quietest moments, which tend to be few and far between lately.

Thus says the Lord, the one who formed you, the one who created you:

"DO NOT FEAR

for I have redeemed you.

I HAVE CALLED YOU BY NAME. 

You are mine.

When you pass through the waters, 

I WILL BE WITH YOU.

And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. 

When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your saviour.

YOU ARE PRECIOUS IN MY SIGHT, 

and honoured, and I love you." 

Isaiah 43:1-3, paraphrased

discovering ourselves

"We shall never truly know ourselves unless we find people who can listen, who can enable us to emerge, to come out of ourselves, to discover who we are. 

We cannot discover ourselves by ourselves." - Edward Farrell

a blur of discovery

who are you?

Who are you? After the roles and titles and names are all stripped away? Who are you really? How would you define yourself?

The following excerpt is completely stolen. It's taken from Oriah's The Invitation. Same author who wrote The Call, the book that I wrote about in this one word post - my first blog post. A sibling read this at our cottage talent show last week, and its words have stayed with me. So now I'm passing it on and sharing it with you! My favourite words are in purple.

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

memories of Lake Huron - 2 summers ago

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

beach toes

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

one voice

More on my voice theme... I've loved this song for a long while, and the Conrad Grebel gals who starred in the play called "Open?" sang it at the end of the play. It was a wonderful solidarity, we're in this together, kind of empowering piece. Very moving.

The work I've loved best has been collaborative and stronger because of the whole, not just because of one person. But we as individuals are so important too. So the one voice is important, and the many together are potently powerful. One voice + many voices.

Here's the song:

I am only one, but still I am one.

I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;

and because I cannot do everything, 

I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

-- Edward Everett Hale

one word

In December, as part of Reverb 10 writing prompts, I attempted to choose a word to hold as my word for 2011. A word to inspire, motivate, push me on, act as my guide on the side, encourage me to expand who I am. And it was hard to choose just one.

So I chose two:

SIMPLIFY 

and CONNECT.

And the two are related to me. The more I simplify - my thoughts, my possessions, my home, my involvements - the greater capacity and time I have to connect with others - my family, friends, earth, self, and God. The more time I have for surprises, spontaneity, and play to enter too. Connecting can take other forms too - like this blog.

I've been reading The Call by Oriah (HarperOne, 2003). In this book, Oriah encourages us to find and embody the one word we are each called to live/teach/be/share with the world. A tall order. But it intrigues me. A quote from the book:

Remember - there is one word you are here to say with your whole being. When it finds you, give your life to it.

She says we should give ourselves completely to this word - or to our struggle with this word. Oriah's word is "rest" - and she finds it VERY hard to do that. She writes:

Living your word means opening the door that fear has closed.

It was hard for me to choose one word for the year, let alone finding one word for my life. What would I choose? Create? Collaborate? Communicate? All things I love to do, so they don't have that "edge" that she refers to. Things that I find hard to do: fail, finish what I've started, resist thrift store deals, clean up around the house, say no to interesting-sounding-projects, act out of courage instead of fear, and rest. But all of those feel a bit heavy to take on as my "word."

Perhaps "voice." For years, I've wondered if I had one. I participated in a 7-month study tour to India, Indonesia, and North American native communities way back when. We studied issues of peace and conflict in the various places we visited. It was truly fascinating and life-changing. One native elder in Canada met with our group near the end of our 7 months together and said, "Sound your voice. You have been given a gift. The gift is not for you to keep to yourselves; it is for the people."

Those words have stayed with me. How often I can think of my life as boring, average, with no words to offer. But I'm beginning to hope that I can offer something. And I know that I love to give voice to others' stories too. So there. Voice. I'll sit with that for awhile and see how it feels as my "life" word.

someone who's not afraid to sound her voice

(or at least her fashion sense)

And you? What words are you embodying for this year? For your life?