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2-16-03 WHO WE ARE DIGS IN EARLY A boy I rode to school with in the 11th grade really shocked me about a year ago. He called and said he had just found a notebook I left in his car way back then. I went to get it immediately. It was a book of poems, including one of my first songs. Most were excerpts from Browning, Edna Saint Vincent Millay, other great poets and a brief snip from a novel by Sinclair Lewis. Like a book from some prophet, that book foretold my future. It screamed, "You will be a poet, a songwriter, and author. You will love and cherish words and thoughts." We stagger through life mumbling, "I wonder what God wants me to do? What is my calling?" Hey, it's no big mystery. God has branded it in your soul. It manifests all the time as talents and interests. Emerson said, "Our calling is in our talents." Joseph Campbell called it "finding our bliss." Those things you love and do well are your calling. You're as branded as any steer on a western ranch. One thing that really strips my gears is a woman who says, "I am just a housewife." Look at all the skills it takes to be a good homemaker. You're a nurse, counselor, chef, hygienist, lover, listener, hugger, helper, administrator, planner, buyer - on and on goes the litany of needed skills. Be proud you are the manager of a human dwelling place, social center, cafeteria, health clinic, classroom and recreation center. I am not at all certain I would have succeeded in life if my mother hadn't been such a good homemaker. I needed a lot of help. Even what you put on the walls of the home can have lifetime meaning for your children. I remember on our living room wall a little decoupaged picture of a Robin and a Sparrow with this poem: Said the Robin to the Sparrow/Friend I'd really like to know/Why these anxious human beings rush about and hurry so/Said the Sparrow to the Robin/Friend I think that it must be/That they have no heavenly Father/Such as cares for you and me. Sometimes we have to do other kinds of work so we can have the money to do our real work. I went to hear the great songwriter Dickey Lee put on a show and he said, "I really don't care for travel and doing these shows but I love to write songs. So I do shows to feed my songwriting habit." Who you are and what you are to be digs into your soul very early. Just open your eyes and see it. Open your heart and feel it. And let nothing keep you from doing it. |
