Recently, I was in a bad mood.
For several years.
So long it felt less like a mood
and more like a disposition.
Unstable as nitroglycerin,
I couldn’t understand why
I was so constantly smoldering,
so frequently bursting into flame.
Until I spent an hour or five with
exactly the right person
and he asked me
exactly the right question:
I wonder…
How many people
in your life are suffering
because you won’t
take up your calling?
ZZZZZZZAP!
It hit me like a taser!
I was rocked, shocked, rattled…
but also strangely excited.
Neither the guy with the taser
nor I knew what my calling was.
But I sensed the deepest truth
in his question:
I was holding back something
I was meant to give away.
Buried too long
with no outlet–
big energy
under big pressure–
this thing of value
had become explosive.
It insisted on being spent
and was now
spontaneously combustible.
If I didn’t consciously
take it up and
give myself to giving it,
it would keep breaking
into my outer life,
constantly smoldering,
always in danger
of bursting into flame.
There was work to be done
to find this gift, this calling,
this buried talent,
this very big deal,
what was it?!
On retreat with a fiery
and creative soul guide,
I unburied it.
Oh.
That?
I used to do that years ago,
but judged it
small and insignificant,
cast it aside,
yes, buried it, too.
Apparently nothing is
small or insignificant
if it is what the Holy
has given you to do.
(Watch This Space…)
Ann Keiffer
May, 2017
Image Credit: Digital Collage by Ann Keiffer
