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.
Yesterday: Step
231 - I have a calling in this world.
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.
