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26 July 2008

Your Calling - A Gift for You and Others

I was struck by some of the dialogue in Krista Tippet's interview with the late Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donahue on Speaking of Faith - The Inner Lanscape of Beauty. Here are some notes I took while listening to the program.

We spend so much time at work, and the loneliest scenario is when you find someone who is in the wrong type of work and they do not have the courage to move on to work that is more in line with what is in their heart and demonstrates the strength and gifts within that person. In Greek, beauty is calling. Beauty is not a neutral thing, but something that is actually calling you. This calling is the heart of our creativity. A person following their calling is a gift to those around him. Such a person's work is an expression of their inner gift and provides an incredible service to us all.

The struggles that we have, the suffering, are things that we push against towards manifesting beauty in our lives. There is a tendency to think that growth should be delivered when it is actually struggled towards as we push against the negativity that surrounds us. The negativity is an impetus that spurs us onward. Following our calling can help us to transfigure what has hardened or been wounded within us.

Good wise leadership is leveraging this kind of imagination in the workplace, usually practical imagination, but the real fruit comes when you stand back and see that the spirit and soul dimensions are not luxury items, but are the source for enabling everything to flow and unfold in a new way. The invisible world can be leveraged for spirit and guidance in areas of ourselves that have been forgotten.

Key Questions:

  • When is the last time you had a great conversation in which you overheard yourself things that you never knew you knew, or you received something that filled a space within you that was empty?
  • What are you reading? Why do we read books? That is where the wisdom is. Go back to the sources and trust your own encounter with them.

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