What is Calling You?

A corporate executive leaves his job to enter into justice advocacy work, drastically altering his livelihood and circles of power. An assembly line worker finds time between shifts and raising children to study for her degree in social work, despite the discouragement of circumstance. A promising medical student leaves her career track to become a river boat guide. A textile worker discovers his love of material and pursues a career in costume design. A child who grew up in the city feels drawn to raising horses. An accountant feels most at home when painting. A lifeguard finds his footing in military boot camp.

"Why have we come here?" echoes the question of Bernard of Clairvaux. What compels us out of bed in the morning? What gives us cause to reach for another day, to welcome learning and experience, to praise our being in the world? What interchange awaits? What connection resonates? What claims joy? What signals well being?

Some know the answer to this question right away. They may have come to it over a long period of searching or woke up suddenly out a sleep or a fog to hear the calling within that answered the search. Some know that they do yet know and are open to the possibility. Others have never really asked that question, some blessedly don’t have to, they just know, and others don’t want to, being afraid of the answer or lack thereof. There are many others who have resigned themselves to never knowing a deeper meaning to their lives, giving in to external circumstance as their self definition... hoping to 'win', hoping they are 'right', hoping they won't be found out.

"Who am I?" writes Ravi Ravindra, "Out of fear and out of desire, I betray myself. I am who I am not. I cover my face with many masks, and even become the masks. I am too busy performing who I think I am to know who I really am. I am afraid: I may be nothing other than what I appear to be. There may be no face behind the mask, so I decorate and protect my mask, preferring a fanciful something over a real nothing." (Parabola, Fall 2004, First Question)

So often we assume we should be someone better, or different, or wiser, or luckier. We think we should be doing this or getting into that. We should know better, we should have more. We should be, we should know, we should have, we should do. With the tyranny of 'should', we distract ourselves from who we really are, how we came to be and what we have to offer. With the standard of 'should' we overwhelm 'I Am', avoiding the very presence that will calm us, inspire us, create us, and ease us into well being. 'I am' calls us into our fullness and gives natural shape to our being.

So many of us spend much of our creative energy trying to mold our image to present to the world for recognition or approval. We summon ourselves to the top of the “should be” mountain, trudging upward through presumptions and prejudices, expectations and judgements. Hauling the load of self assessment up the steep slope like Sisyphus, never quite getting to that place of meaning. We let ourselves fall back due to circumstance or opinion and carry the load once again with renewed hope that we can find what we are looking for.

But what we are looking for is with us all the time. The irony of our search for ourselves and our meaning on this earth brings us, if followed through till acceptance, back to where we started, back to ourselves, always fully there, having been lost in the shuffle of self made distractions and endorsed distortions.

In most cases, we sabotage our potential to come to who we most powerfully are by overlooking our greatest power. It’s not our talents, our contacts, our heritage or our material wealth. It's not our accomplishments or competitive edge or experience or position in society. Our greatest power is the urging of our being that brought us into life, the wisdom of what we could most gracefully be, all along.

This wisdom reveals itself from time to time, often without our notice. Sometimes we might feel a tug or sense a tender yearning or a kind of uneasiness with the way of things. We might have a persistent notion that there is something more for us to do or we may be confronted full on with an undeniable experience that gives clarity and a solid sense of our truth. And every so often, when conditions are ripe, we may come into a moment of “meant to be”, that deep and abiding joy of being alive and participating in it.

We hear people speak of their “calling”, a sense of purpose and direction, an experience or knowledge that compels choices and directs intention. Christopher Bamford describes the 'call' a moment or movement of being when 'experience is unified'. It is a time when all things fall into place and a clear rendering of our response to life emerges.

This “calling”, this urging from soulful depths, is a response to our longing or searching for the answer 'who am I?' This longing or searching is something we do even when we are not aware of it. It is the natural urging of our being alive, of our being mysteriously here, somehow human being.

There are two essential interlocking answers to “Who am I?” One is 'I am.' The very fact of our birth, the very fact of our consciousness puts us into the position to claim being, “I am.” This being that we know of, this 'I am' is the grounding of all that exists.

When Moses first addressed the Essence at the legendary burning bush, the voice answered his urging for a name by describing itself as “I am that I am.” This claiming of being that directs our deepest purpose is the same within all being, it is the overriding being that can be recognized—that can be known: I am that I am.

When we are born we are called to life from essence, and that calling claims itself as part of the great 'I am'.

This essence grounds the Unitarian Universalist belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Every being that has taken form, has taken form from within this essence. We share this truth of life with everyone and with all beings that ever were and ever will be.

The other answer to 'who am I?', which in some ways is far more difficult to discern or embrace is: 'I am in particular'. When we are born we differentiate from the source from which we sprang. We form ourselves, we become, we claim, we respond, we create, we choose. I am in particular.

Bamford names this part of the call the drawing toward destiny. In some ways we can think of a call as the manifestation of roots and wings, the knowledge of source and the urging to claim it in particular.

This is not easy work. It actually takes a lot of courage to enter into a calling. It’s also hard to know what’s real, to trust an urging of the soul, to trust that it is of soul and not some distraction. There are many qualities of life and challenges of chance that provide blocks, inconsistencies, diversions and downright delusions that prevent a clear knowing of our call and trust in that knowing. It is also true that the call may change in form or focus, which can be confusing. This merely means a deepening is occurring. It means that we are ready to take another step into the well of “I am” and claim it. But could also mean a detour from the work we are already doing to get to our essence, our power our joy. That's the struggle.

We are encouraged into detours by society. The power of our essence is played down in society, even, at times, willfully obstructed by those in political, economic and even religious power. This is because a true calling taps into our inner authority regarding life which makes us less prone to being controlled by others.

We are then less likely to run out and buy those “must haves”, or scramble to keep up with “status quo”. We are fed negative imaging of ourselves. Who we are needs “fixing” to fit in and find “success”. We are also kept in fear for our survival these days, being encouraged to spend our life energy on preventing something from happening to us rather than gathering our strength to praise the power of life in us.

So how do we know our calling or even feel its presence in our lives?

Rev. Wayne Muller, offers four simple questions in his work How,Then, Shall We Live?, that "reveal" in his words, "the beauty and meaning of our lives." These four questions can help in discerning what is calling you: what 'I am' can you realize?

These four questions are questions distilled from many religious traditions, to outline the shared spiritual journey that each of us enter into alone, yet beside all others.

The first of the questions is Who am I? This first question shows a desire to wake up out of the fog of existence. Who am I? What is my true nature? Where is the place that touches that which is inexplicably linked to the source of all things?

This is a question that can summon all of our masks. We can list all the answers to that simple question. I am a minister. I am a redhead. I am a mother. I am an only girl. I am one who dances. I am one who listens. I am one who doesn’t always listen... we can list all that we do and claim on our day to day to find, slowly but surely, that all these characters and masks and assumptions are linked to one person. At the same time all these links are shared by others, not in exactly the same combination, yet part of the Great 'I Am'. Who am I is nothing special and all that is. Who am I has ways of being and infinite relations. Who am I has worth as one and part of the Eternal One.

Question two helps in the particular of a calling. "What do I love? ...what do I place in the center of my being? ...what most reliably touches me deeply and reflects my beauty? ...what do I love?" Pursuing this question, we can see whether we dwell on what we love. We can see whether we give it time and nurture it in our lives. For when we nurture our love, we diminish our fear and we open our hearts to possibility. What do I love?

Question three. "How shall I live knowing I will die?" This helps us remember the part of the calling that is “I am” in particular. We in our unique being, have limited time. We either find it and sing it or not. 'I am' goes on. “I am in particular” is fragile and beautiful and enhances the world when known. This is close to Rabbi Hillel’s essential question: "If not now, when?" How shall I live knowing I will die?

And finally, we can catch glimpse of our calling or know its beckoning when we ask “What is my gift to the family of the earth?” Spiritual leaders often preach that the true harvest of a spiritual life is a life of generosity and loving kindness. It is in giving that we receive, that we know our true power and can glorify our nature in the sharing of it. How do I hold or offer my gift to the family of earth? (Text intertwined from suggestions by Wayne Muller's lecture, How, Then, Shall We Live?)

Who Am I? What do I love? How shall I live knowing I will die? What is my gift to the family of the earth? This framework points to the humble inquiry of soul and the bold celebration of being.

Once we make a commitment to shine, to find our inner power, we cannot hide behind our 'yes, buts' and “if only’s”. I could do this...but, I would do that...if only. Claiming ourselves can be scarey, but it is where our true power lies and where, in fact, the health of the world dwells. The world needs our blessed claiming of 'I am'. Each time one of us taps into that power of being, we spread light and love and courage to those we touch. Each time one of us calls to our essence we heal that which feared its becoming.

May you know that the claiming of your heart and the calling of your soul is welcomed. We need only get out of our own way to touch and magnify the glory of our lives. Believe in it. Today.

So may it be. Amen.