Calling

I wrote this in 2000 after a day when I spent an hour with someone severely grieving and depressed, and who was becoming suicidal, and after 2 weeks of two long contacts with this person, and 4 with another person going through a crisis. During those weeks I was also working on shifting a difficult pattern with one of my children, starting to talk about some problems with the medical board with people, having long talks with a particular friend, and having several people severely sick, two of whom died. Needless to say, a very demanding time, when I felt stretched very thin. This is a reflection on the deep part of my calling, which I felt very clearly then. (Sometimes it's not quite so evident when things are going "well"; the times of challenge seem to be where I dig the deepest.)


I listen
and feel

and the words come
that I need to reach you
to comfort, to sustain.

I pray and reach out,
connect the far-flung resources
that each person needs,

weaving together a community,

seeking my path, listening for God's
voice and direction, feeling for my part,
for the direction of my growth and work.

I work to feel your path and possibilities --
What calls to you? What supports you?
What pulls you through times of despair and
confusion? What helps you remember laughter,
remember that you are loved, feel understood?
What gives you peace, hope, and encouragement?

We talk together, moving between tears and laughter.
Love and understanding blossom. We matter, we
make a difference to each other and the world.
We find hope, gather courage, seek peace in
an uncertain world.

I take the time, stretch to hold your world in
mine (and release the strain, the pain, into God's
world, because he's big enough to hold it all).

I don't know how I find the path from
hopelessness to laughter, how the honesty
and trust and caring build (though ingredients
are listening, touch, sharing, time, concern,
and God).

As the shift occurs I relax, and
start to break away from the intensity, to other
things I have to do. I feel a deep
satisfaction, and also am sometimes drained.
A birth has occurred, with pain and joy
and exhaustion. Things are changed, but
there's much more to do.

Sometimes I feel -- how can I do
more? What about my limits? How far
can I stretch? ... How many lives have
I stretched around? How can I hold this
set of problems?

Then again ... how can I not?

Were I not using my gifts where
I am called, I would not be living,
not truly. (Perhaps an empty motion, a
superficial enjoyment -- a living death.)
I choose life, love, healing, learning,
growth. There's no rote set of directions
or words or actions, no formula; only the
challenge of awareness, of listening to
the whisper of Spirit each moment,
of following my intuition, of going
deeper and learning and growing in all
aspects of myself. (And there's frustration
and disappointment when I fail, as with
distraction, fatigue, settling for less;
then I pick back up and recommit to
applying this to all aspects of my life.)


copyright Barbara Showalter 2000.