Day 13: A Life Dedicated to Manifesting a Dream

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 Today I am challenged to not present a picture. Today is just a response to this question: think about what you feel your message is for your life.

I REALLY wanted to upload a photo as well, and I even spent more time than I should've looking for one to include with this response. But what grace looks like for me today is to let that go. It doesn't have to be perfect. This is not for a grade. You don't have to always go above-and-beyond Janell.

So here is my response to Joy's question. 

What is my calling? What a life-long question!
When I was young, I held everything separately, in their own little containers and categories.  Everything that I was suppose to be and do seemed just a little bit out of reach. I was always striving. Do better. Be better. Get it together.
As I was thinking about it and looking at some old pictures over the past 10 years, I think the turning point for me in finding my calling was that I started listening to my anger.
I started meeting with a spiritual mentor from my church and we read a book together called, The Enigma of Anger: Essays of a Sometimes Deadly Sin by Garret Keizer. 
This book changed my life. My anger had something to say and I'd been ignoring it for 30 years. That's a lot of leaky passive-aggressive rage.
The thing is, all of this anger and grief and conflict and beauty was swirling around inside of me, not "out there." 
If I wanted to find my calling, I had to contribute to the slow daily work of discovering it. 
I had to let everything belong. I had to un-dam the dams, bust up the ice, erase all the categories I had put myself, others and God in and free fall.
Down below it all is the grace of God. It's there I find my calling. In this in-between Now and Not Yet. 
Richard Rohr says in his book True Self False Self, "When we start holding the opposites together-light & dark, the good & bad, the heavy & light, God & me - we forgive reality itself. That its so screwed up and broken, and such a mixed metaphor and mixed message. God starts holding together the opposites inside of us and our world changes."
So I guess that's my calling. To let myself be. Pay attention to that still small voice within, the one that I said yes to when I was 4 and the one I'm still saying yes to today by the grace of God. Because even on those days when I can't summon the yes, God says it for me.
It's all a gift. So I'll keep writing, I'll keep taking pictures, I'll keep playing music that makes me cry and dance, I'll keep making food, I'll keep listening to people's stories, I'll keep chasing storms, I'll keep trying those things that light me up and break my heart. 
And then I'll invite you over for dinner.

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