Dear colleagues and friends,
As some of you have already noticed, this issue is being sent
later in the month than usual. I apologize for the delay and I
will admit that due to a very heavy travel schedule, I wondered if
I would get it out this month at all. The truth is that I am so
over-the-top excited with the fast growing readership of this
newsletter and the committed work being provided by so many of you
with whom I have been face to face this year, I could not bear the
thought of passing on this opportunity to connect with you again,
albeit electronically. Happy November!
I have been on many airplanes and worked in many places since I
last wrote to you. I have been to beautiful places - like the
mountains of Vermont and Shoal Lake in Ontario, Canada. I have
touched down in grounding places - like small towns in Indiana
where, if you listen closely enough, you can hear the corn at the
edge of town rustling in the night. I have been fortunate this
month to work in exciting places - Winnipeg, Salt Lake City, San
Francisco and Phoenix! The people I have had the privilege to
speak to in these various locales have included folks who work in
mental health centers, welfare to work programs, rehabilitation
programs for individuals with traumatic brain injuries, councils
for people with developmental disabilities, employers working to
create inclusive workplaces, and career advisors from community
colleges and state universities. Yet, despite the diversity of
these varied places and contexts, there is an underlying question
that surfaces at every event. Simply stated, it is this:
How do we assist individuals (and ourselves) to find and
maintain the path to our truest livelihood when at times we don’t
really know what our true path is?
We know this to be true – the best job search strategies in the
world mean little unless one knows what one is looking for! Plain
ol’ employment – the kind that pays the bills but starves the
spirit – that’s easy to find on any given day. But to find the
kind of work that puts light in your eyes and a song in your step
requires something more – it requires vision. A dream. A little
fancy mixed with a dose of practicality and a few wishes thrown in
for good measure. We need a horizon to head for - a star pointing
us in the direction of true north before we can get our feet to
move and our hearts to start pumping. But what do we do in those
times when we are clueless as to what color our parachute is? How
many of us would jump at the chance of “following your bliss”, if
only you knew what our bliss looked like! As Woody Allen expressed
so well, “If only God would give me a clear sign- like making a
large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank!”
Each issue of this newsletter tackles some aspect of the quest
to discover and maintain “true livelihood” – most of which ask
questions that beat on the door of our desires, our enthusiasms,
our purposes, our talents, etc. This month I want to knock on a
door we rarely open. Its knob is rusty and its bell has less than
a vibrant tone. I want to enter the room of our discontent- the
place in us that feels like it knows nothing at all, but in
reality, stores heaps of great, dusty wisdom in places we seldom
look.
At the same time that we were born with certain inclinations
and proclivities - things that we are drawn to, there have also
always been those things by which we are completely repelled.
There are things that make us laugh and leap for joy, but there
are other things that make us cry and want to retreat from the
world. There are aspects of life, people, and the world that we
find exhilarating and beautiful and other aspects that we find
ugly, abhorrent, offensive or simply boring! We have favorite
things and we have pet peeves. It would behoove us to peer into
and give as much attention to those things that disturb us as to
those that bring us alive for one very good reason: Boredom,
discontent and angst are signs of energy and hope, not of despair!
In the same way that fear is just a cover for something
precious we want to protect, discontent is a cover for joy wanting
to be born. Discontent triggers outer change because it makes us
uncomfortable enough to move. Take heart – when we do not have a
vision that is strong enough to pull us, perhaps we have a source
discontent that is deep enough to push us! We need to listen to
our malcontent rather than ignore it. We need to hear its song –
for surely the angst of our sorrowful longing carries notes and
chords that resonate as truthfully and beautifully as our joy.
Our lives call to us in many ways, shapes and forms – begging
to be given their truest and most authentic form. This very idea
is hidden in the word “vocation” itself, which is rooted in the
Latin for “voice”. Vocation does not mean a goal that we pursue,
but a calling or a voice that we hear. Before we insist what we
plan to do with our lives, we must listen to what our lives are
asking from us. We must listen for the truths and values at the
heart of our own identities. Sometimes those values arise in us in
the form of a positive affirmation - but at other times those
values arise in us as surging indignation, righteous anger or
unadulterated fury. This, too, is sacred fire. What is the use of
having a heart of it only burns at the sights and sounds that
please it? Our hearts are also meant to burn at high flame in the
face of injustice, cruelty, or cold-hearted apathy and
indifference. What sets my heart burning in high rage is not what
sets yours burning to the s ame degree – and thank heavens for
that, because the world needs us to be set on fire about different
things, at different times and in different places.
We were made to experience both sides of the heart’s emotions –
doesn’t it seem natural that we would receive a fair portion of
clues, hints and inclinations leading to our truest livelihood
from the whole heart rather than just one side of it? As we know
too well, a one-sided story rarely gives us the entire picture.
Perhaps tuning into what we don’t want – to what disturbs, offends
and turns us off, is as good a place to start in uncovering our
dreams as trying to clarify the dream itself.
When asked how he could create such spectacular sculptures out
of stone, Michelangelo replied, “I see the angel in the stone and
then chip away at everything that is not angel.” When in the
groundswell of great unknowing about what we want, perhaps we can
take refuge in the clarity of everything we know with resounding
certainty about what we don’t want! It is one way to begin getting
to the angel in the stone because while we might not see the
particular curves and cut of the angel, we can start by chipping
away at was is clearly not angel! Respond to the questions in the
Putting into Practice section of this issue’s newsletter to sense
the whereabouts of wings in the stone of your livelihood.
In his wisdom, Wendell Berry advised, “It may be when we no
longer know what to do, that we have come to our real work. When
we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real
journey.” Maybe the “not knowing” is an essential stage of any
journey. Besides, in the same way that a joke is not funny if you
know the punch line, maybe our lives would not hold the delight
and surprise if there wasn’t the mystery. If we always knew where
we were going, we would have no capacity nor appetite for the
magic wrapped in possibility, nor the blossoming of the dark that
Wendell Berry speaks about in the gorgeous verse that follows:
