Everyone should have a place to go where they can say whatever they need to say, to complain about whatever they need to get off their minds, to say every foul swear word their mother never let them say, where they feel totally safe to talk about what’s hard about their lives (or what’s wonderful for that matter) without fear of being judged or laughed at or envied or any of that stuff. For most of my life I’ve been a listener. I’ve done my best to provide people a space where they can say what they need to say, yell, cry, complain, etc. I don’t know how it started or why, but I have been a listener from the time I was a kid. It’s kind of like being a confessor, except I don’t offer absolution and I definitely don’t speak for God. I just try to listen. It is a gift, a skill that I want to cultivate and strengthen. People want to be heard, to be known and understood. I believe we humans fundamentally want to connect with others, and sometimes we simply don’t know how.
I am a bit muddled this evening, trying to find words to name what I am feeling. There’s a feeling in the air that I can’t quite articulate. I am hoping that in my listening I will hear and get clarity about what it is and can speak it. It’s in part about reaching out and connecting with one another. There’s a deep hunger for connection, for purpose and meaning, for something that’s almost indefinable. As much as I would like to describe it, I can’t seem to get at it. Perhaps I am trying to describe what Mary Chapin Carpenter sings about in the song, “A Place in the World” that someplace where we totally belong, doing what it is we’re put on the planet to do. I’ve spent a lot of time over the course of my life trying to find my place in the world the place that Theologian and writer Frederick Buechner calls, “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” That place where my talents, skills and passions are rightly aligned with the work I am doing. I keep getting closer all the time. It is a fortunate person indeed who lands in the place just right where all those things come together and you find yourself doing exactly what you’re uniquely designed to do. How cool would that be?
I am grateful and content with the knowledge that part of what I was put here to do was to listen and support, to hear what’s not being said as clearly as what is and to help people feel that they’ve been heard and understood and that what they’ve said matters. There are other things I am called to do at this moment in my life, some of them I know, some I don’t. Whatever the case I’ll keep walking the path and picking up the clues along the way. I have to smile and shake my head at myself this evening. Sometimes what I want to write comes clearly and easily, and other times I struggle, watching the blinking cursor of death flashing balefully on the blank page. At times like this I am grateful for the faithful folks who follow this blog and indulge my periodic ramblings. I also encourage you to open your heart and close your eyes and feel into your own energy to see what’s calling to you and what you’re sensing that the world is hungry for. I might not be able to describe it to you, but without much effort you can experience it for yourself.
Tonight I will rest. Tomorrow I will rise, write in my journal and get on with another day. I still have a lot of questions and unknowns and the occasional struggles in my life at the moment. There’s no doubt in my mind, however, that all shall be and in fact all is well.
