8/20/14

Step 232 - My calling in life requires the development of others. Entry for Step 231 - I have a calling in this world.


Greetings All –


FOR YOUR CALLING TO EMERGE IN YOUR LIFE, it is not merely your own development that is essential, but the development of others with whom you will be directly engaged. Because your purpose in life involves your engagement with others, it is not a singular pursuit. It is not an individual fulfillment. In reality, there is no individual who is completely separate from other individuals because individuality has meaning only in terms of expressing that which binds and joins all life.


THEREFORE, THIS DAY DEVELOP THE WISDOM and the understanding that your true accomplishment is dependent upon the accomplishment of others as well. Think not that you know who all these others are, for you have not met them all yet. Some are in this world, and some are beyond the world. They may not be in your personal sphere at all.


HOW, THEN, CAN YOU PROCEED when your accomplishment is partially dependent upon others? You proceed by giving yourself to your preparation. The power of doing this will strengthen those with whom you will be engaged in your life’s calling. Because your application strengthens one another, you are already in relationship; you are already influencing one another. The closer you come to that point where Knowledge emerges, the closer they will come as well. The more you hold yourself back, the more you hold them back. You cannot see the mechanism for this while you are in the world, for you must be beyond the world to see how this works. But you can understand the idea that all minds influence each other, particularly those minds that are meant to be engaged specifically with one another in life.


THEREFORE, YOUR ADVANCEMENT IS DEPENDENT upon your own efforts and the efforts of others. Yet, the efforts of others are supplemented and strengthened by your own efforts. Therefore, your achievement is very much given to you to accomplish, and yet your achievement will join you with life and will deepen the  content and experience of relationship beyond what you were formerly able to experience.


IN YOUR HOURLY REMEMBRANCES and in your longer meditations in stillness today, allow your efforts to supplement the efforts of others, which will supplement your efforts. Allow the combination of your mutual dedication, then, to be a source of strength which you will experience this day and which will be experienced by those whom you have not yet met in this life.


PRACTICE 232: Two 30-minute practice periods. Hourly practice.



This is a serious Step. We have been responding to “The Call,” in our own way, whether we know it or not.

In my youth, living in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, a mostly Catholic town, where I was Lutheran, I was familiar with the goal of every Catholic family to have a priest and nun go into the work of the church. 

My friend Jimmy, at age ten, had that goal. In the Lutheran tradition, one was to be hear “the call to ministry.” Another friend of mine went to Lutheran seminary while in high school. One exercise he told me about was, that of each student copying by hand the bible.

Maybe that’s where I got my idea of writing out passages from Steps and the GCS books. Jesus began his ministry at about age 30 and it lasted for two years. After passing age 32, I wondered if I would ever get a call. Steps gives a new perspective on this. I started at age 52 on this phase. If you are younger than that, you have a great advantage.  

From the Journal:

5:50 a.m. March 3, 2000

231 "I have a calling in the world." When I said "Here am I, send me." I didn't know what was to be done. I will continue to follow my intuition through the confusion and wait on the emergence of my calling.

6:31 a.m. My work is to call forth awareness of regional community.

6:52 a.m. As I went into the stillness – Nightshades was playing a CD in about the planets – era of global cooperation and unity and now music was playing a part in this movement.

I sensed the issue of "local" and "regional" music going global. This is also happening with food, autos, – All artifacts of our culture. going from local to regional to global, that change of venue/scale alters the experience. Settlement of an area is done through localizing/governing/populating

In the middle of my meditation my mind was generating ---

8:32 a.m. The day goes forward. There is much to do.

10:55 p.m. The step today: "I have a calling in this world."

I wonder what it might be. --- I was called by Sarah at work. She was fighting the urge to go back to Lloyd. I told her she needed to be strong. M.E. just called to say Sarah left and she's locked her out.

I got some reinforcement from At (de Lange). He suggested I read Jan Smuts – it was encouraging of my "deepening."

I will remain cool. I will stay centered of necessity. This earth place is a challenging maelstrom.

Let us continue so that we can figure out “The Call” in our lives.

NNC



P.S. At Step 232, we are into Part Two of Steps, so if you’ve found this and find some appeal in this or other Steps, you should really go to the beginning blog post. From here you learn about Steps to Knowledge and can begin it on the day that makes sense and then progress as needed. You can use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps. They will remain in order in the archives - one per Step.

Often it takes 18 months to get through the Steps once. For this blog, the pace is one-a-day, but it really makes no difference how fast you do it, only that you begin, persist and repeat. Posts here provide a trail that may let you have a virtual companion when and if you want one. One may have to study alone, as I did in the beginning. There are other Steps students blogging their experience and you might find a person more like you as a companion, or use a number of such Steps journeys. There are options as well through the Free School of the New Message