Shackles Off!

A few weeks ago, I was yearning to revisit a time when all things seemed possible.  The books that lead me in those directions are all packed away.  Happily, there are libraries!

I've been reading Martha Beck's Steering by Starlight:  Find Your Right Life, No Matter What.  In some ways, it hasn't told me anything I didn't already know. In fact, I probably read it when it first came out.  I'm a big fan of the power of positive thinking--but books like this one don't do enough to talk about the structural issues that might be stacked against us.

Still, there were some great nuggets.  Let me capture 2 of them:

"The Buddha often said that whenever you find water, you can tell if it's the ocean because the ocean always tastes of salt.  By the same token, anywhere you find enlightenment--whatever improbable or unfamiliar shape it may have assumed--you can tell it's enlightenment because enlightenment always tastes of freedom.  Not comfort.  Not ease.  Feedom." (p. 42)

"If you do nothing more than choose whatever feels most 'shackles off' to you, moment by moment, you will fulfill your best destiny.  . . .   Don't wait for your lizard fears to go away; they never will, as long as you have a brain.  You will never realize your best destiny through the avoidance of fear.  Rather, you will realize it through the exercise of courage, which means taking whatever action is most liberating to the soul, even if you are afraid." (p. 44, emphasis the author's)

Yesterday I wrote to the woman at the Synod office who's in charge of discernment and candidacy:  "I am most interested in the areas where creativity and theology intersect. I am also interested in serving people at midlife. I think the church has often done a great job of ministering to youth, but we tend to ignore vast swaths of populations at midlife who are often wrestling with a variety of profound issues."

I love that the church realizes that people can hear a call in many different ways.  I like the idea of a process of discernment, which I'm hoping will lead to my discovery of what feels most "shackles off."