February 1st celebrates the seeds of the next section of our lives. In addition to its celebration of the light and the first new agricultural babies of the year, and the milk their mothers let down, in earlier times it was also a season of initiation. After several days of fasting and meditating, initiates would emerge from cells to claim their place in the community and the gifts they would share.
This makes this a particularly important week to consider your “call.” What is a call? I believe it is the thing the longing to do the one thing you are best equipped to do, the thing, which when undertaken, is not a chore to develop, and even when challenging, makes you know you are using you gifts to their deepest abilities. You’re where you belong to be, doing what you need to do.
When you decide to do your best work and not everything else that needs to be done, you come into a position to realize your own Peacemaking. So many of us are doing work that is best left to others. When we do that, we have to work harder, because it doesn’t come naturally to us, and we’re less comfortable (see earlier reason), and therefore less open to help. When we feel insecure or uncomfortable, it can be hard to admit.
I often think of this in conjunction with A.A. Milne’s character Tigger, in Winnie The Pooh. Tigger did a lot of pouncing in his youth and didn’t quite know either what he was or what he liked to eat. He wondered all over the vale. Everything he tried he proclaimed that this was what Tiggers like, only to realize, he was wrong, and then he was off to the Next Best Thing, which was, alas, not a Best Thing. Until at last, Roo’s mother Kanga, did some research and figured out what Tiggers needed and liked to eat. What a relief! For everyone really. Tigger became less pouncy and disruptive.
The same could be true for us. Because unless we finally realize what is truly our Best Thing. Life is challenging and we’re not comfortable. Even if we become practiced at it. And the fact is that Tiggers like to pounce, it’s in their DNA and they have the energy for it when they’re eating that Thing That Tiggers Like Best.
Now it may be that each of us doesn’t have the wherewithal to quit our job when we finally connect to that Best Thing. But we can begin to develop those skills and use them in the in our free time, with our families, in our communities, or even in the world at large. When you’re doing that Best Thing, you know, in your core, that this is what you are supposed to do. Now you can develop it. The world will be better for your doing your work. It is only once you know your True Calling that you become a Peacemaker.
Listen. What is calling your name? What calls it deep in your heart, maybe in a place you have never dared to listen. Are you already doing that? If not, wouldn’t you like to have all of your heart alive and active in the world?
Don’t listen to the status quo when they tell you what is impossible. Listen to what your heart knows is possible. And then call the Peacemakers in your life together and figure out how to do the Possible and call it Peace.
Your call matters to me and to the world. Thank you.
Salaam, Shalom, Peace. Blessed be.