Some are waiting for their call.

Some don’t think people like them will ever receive a call.

Others think once they are called, that’s it.

But what if calling is present imperfect?

What if you’ve already been called?

What if you’ll be called again today?

What if there’ll be another call tomorrow, different to the degree you responded today?

Responding to a call will bring you into enriched environments that enhance calling.

Put simply, epigenetics is showing that who a person becomes is based far more heavily on which genes are present.  And gene expression is based in large part on environmental signals and choices.  Thus, a person’s biology is not fixed, but highly fluid and malleable.  It’s an exciting and empowering message.*
(Ben Hardy)

Never stop looking for what is not there.**
(“Monte Wildhorn”)

I like the the word “like,” but it’s increasingly used to replace “er” or a pause or silence (   ) in speech.

Like has a much more interesting use, though.

When we delve into the unsure, unknown, unfamiliar, discovering something new or different, we have to liken it to something.  It’s the only way we can understand and communicate it.  I found myself doing this yesterday when someone asked me about dreamwhispering: “Well, it’s a little like coaching and mentoring but it’s different, too …”.

I think it also comes into play when someone is talking about their potential.  Ben Hardy’s opening words tell us that potential is quite a tricky thing to know.  Our potential looks different in different environments.  He shares how he began discovering things about himself he never knew when he moved into a more challenging environment:

‘I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  And thus, I was unaware of the latent potential within me.  Moreover, I was unaware of what true productivity could look like.’*

If you can describe your potential to me then you probably don’t know your potential.  You only know what it looks like where you are now.  It’s more than this, I know, because everyone has way more potential than they know.  We need to move into more challenging environments to discover how much more, the kind of more that leaves us floundering for ways of describing it: “Well it’s a little like this …” we say.

Graham Leicester and Bill Sharpe describe well the uncertainty, and so, the possibilities of the future when they write:

‘a landscape of uncertainty, in which we too are actors’.^

Those who adapt and learn to play in such an uncertainty will become transformative innovators, those who will bring the future into view, those willing to explore the uncertainty of “er” and (   ):

“I and this mystery, here I stand.”^^

It doesn’t have to be big but there’s definitely something beyond this now.  Something that we’ll only be able to describe in the first place as “like this.”

Here’s a blessing for your exploring:

‘May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

[…]

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.’*^

(*From Benjamin Hardy’s Willpower Doesn’t Work.)
(**Morgan Freeman’s Character in the movie The Magic of Belle Isle.)
(^From Graham Leicester’s and Bill Sharpe’s Transforming Higher Education.)
(^^Walt Whitman, quoted in Jonah Lehrer’s Proust was a Neuroscientist.)
(*^From John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us.)

The problem with thinking is that it causes you to develop illusions.  And thinking may be such a waste of energy!  Who needs it?*
(Nassim Taleb)

In his book The Last Word and the Word After That, Brian McLaren identifies the community of knowing.  It’s really a community of unknowing because each member encourages and is encouraged to explore and attempt more.  When the group ceases to do this, either they must be challenged to step up or members must leave and find or form another community.

I recently came across how difficult it is to be openly listened to in a possibility of exploring way in a group just like this.  One person offers input, the others listen openly and reflect back but do not give advice.   This felt unnerving, a different kind of experience for the one inputting.

When we are being deeply listened to, our thinking is taken to new places, places we have not had to go to before when others have produced the answers for us.

Those listening were equally honest, confessing how hard it was not to deeply listen, not to make their ideas the centre of the conversation or follow distracting thoughts out of the room.

These words from Richard Rohr, identifying the kind of disorientation likely to be personally experienced when moving from the past to the future, provide a description for moving into deeper listening:

‘You normally have to let go of the old and go through a stage of unknowing and confusion, before you can move to a new level of awareness or new capacity.’**

This being with others in an increasingly open way is unsettling, as Nassim Taleb points out what’s normally going on:

‘We unwittingly amplify commonalities with friends, dissimilarities with strangers, and contrasts with enemies.’^

These commonalities, dissimilarities and contrasts probably have little basis, “heuristics and biases”* we tell ourselves and they must be broken through with deeper listening.  Rainer Maria Rilke knew how hard this is:

“for one human being to love another … is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks … the work for which all other works is but preparation”.^^

Rilke is positing the closest of all human relationships but the work of relationships are true for all.

To listen deeply, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength – because it will take all – creates the new environments we need to move into futures we cannot imagine on our own.

We have to go to the difficult places, counsels entrepreneur Jim Rohn:

“Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow.  Go where the expectations and demands are high.”*^

Uncanny are surprising things that can change and grow us:

“The uncanny is always crouching, ready to spring.”^*

(*From Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness.)
(**From Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now.)
(^From Nassim Taleb’s The Bed of Procrustes.)
(^^Rainer Maria Rilke, quoted in Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings: How to Break Up with Integrity.)
(*^Jim Rohn, quoted in Benjamin Hardy’s Willpower Doesn’t Work.)
(^*Tom Cunning, Quoted in Charlotte Bosseaux’s Dubbing: Film and Performance.)

The world would be better for our being here if we started every day with the tension of being missed tomorrow.*
(Bernadette Jiwa)

But what about the rest?  What about the ones […] who can’t even put words to their dreams?**
(Hugh Macleod)

Some people are running away from their past, others are running from their future.

Running from the past may look like we’re running towards the future, but it can be just running.

Running from the future may look like we’re valuing the present, but it can simply be an avoidance of change.

I believe a person’s future can be so many things that it’s not possible to open it all.

Something will be missed because of tiredness or distraction, something will be held back on … just in case something else is going to appear.  We’re not omniscient or omnipresent or omnipotent.  Accepting our limitations will make it possible to open something of our future and this will be more than enough, and I am sure, life will grow bigger.

Another term for what is at play here is indifference.  Not worrying and even ignoring some of the possibilities for the ones that matter most to us.  We need to listen to our bodies, to our lives, hear what they are saying to us.  It’s not just a head-logical-linear thing; it’s whole messy body thing:

‘The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists.  The poet merely enjoys existence.’^

We love certainty, but somewhere between our certainties, we need to get lost.  Here’s a blessing for doing just this from John O’Donohue:

‘May the Angel of Awakening stir your heart
To come alive to the eternal within you,
To all the invitations that quietly surround you.

[…]

May the Angel of Wildness disturb the places
Where your life is domesticated and safe,
Take you to the territories of true otherness

Where all that is awkward in you
Can fall into its own rhythm.’^^

Here is the you we will miss.

(*From The Story of Telling blog: Missed.)
(**From gapingvoid’s blog: Deciding who needs a hand.)
(^From Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel.)
(^^From John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space between Us: A Blessing of Angels.)

We are human becomings, after all.

Joseph Campbell writes of a story he finds being told in many beliefs and religions through the millennia:

‘Have you been spiritually reborn?  Have you died to your animal nature and come to life as a human incarnation of compassion?’*

It’s a journey of becoming fully human and we do not know what we can become.

Jesuit Bernard Lonergan claims:

‘conversion is the experience by which one becomes an authentic human being”.**

In its most universal form, conversion is moving from this to this, a capability we seem to have in abundance, though we can be held back.

So forgiveness becomes a huge deal when it comes to setting one another and ourselves free from our pasts, hence the doodle today.

The Jesuits also emphasised indifference as a critical attitude towards what we must let go of if we are to move into a brighter future.

Whilst forgiveness can be more about when things go wrong, indifference can be more about letting past successes (or dreams of certain kinds of success) go so we can move on.

The future can beckon in these two forms, too.  There can be thing that is wrong or not working right and we want to do something about it.  There’s can also the dream of something, we don’t know where it comes from, and it seeds itself in our imaginations and we wonder, What if … ?

We’re not done yet.  We’re just beginning.

(*From Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers’ The Power of Myth.)
(**Bernard Lonergan, quoted in Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now.)

You’ve got to say yes to this miracle of life as it is, not on the condition that it follows your rules.  Otherwise, you’ll never get through to the metaphysical dimension.*
(Joseph Campbell)

We make our biggest contribution when we dare to do what only a handful will do.  Being one of the few is underrated.**
(Bernadette Jiwa)

I wish that I could describe the blue of the sky that awaited me this morning.

On a crisp, still, icy morning I looked up in awe at the sky that was later than night but not yet morning.  Soon a new day would begin and I couldn’t help but ponder:

What if this were the first day of a new possibility?

A day in which I could whole-mindedly, -heartedly and -bodily invest myself.

What is the story I will tell myself towards this?  Before the other stories kick in?

What will be the thing I do that is different to what others are doing?

It’s true of every day, it’s real for each of us:

‘The most important things in life require that you bring your own urgency.  Passion is the fuel that brings urgency.’^

(*From Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers’ The Power of Myth.)
(**From The Story of Telling’s blog: One of the Few.)
(^From Erwin McManus’ The Last Arrow.)

Yet the imagination gives to everything that it touches a peculiarity, and it seems to me that the peculiarity of the imagination is nobility, of which there are many degrees.*
(Wallace Stevens)

Erwin McManus writes of how we seek three things: honour, nobility and enlightenment.**

Wallace Stevens suggest that the lack or disappearance of nobility is possibly ‘a maladjustment between the imagination and reality.’*

To discover or rediscover our imagination – each person’s tinted by different curiosities and interests – is to step into our peculiar nobility and to recognise one another’s.

Our imaginations are as real a thing as the reality they face.

They not only see something differently but engage the creative self in making this possible, in some way or other.

It is why I feel we will learn to be truly human and survive.

(*From Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel.)
(**From Erwin McManus’ Uprising.)

The familiar, precisely because it is familiar, remains unknown.*
(Georg Hegel)

Do we measure or weigh our lives by what we have been able to see or by what we have missed?

Hugh Macleod writes about the adventure life is:

‘If you’re lucky, eventually you get to the point when your realise that, while you were here you had an amazing time of things.  What a trip!  What an amazing adventure!

[…]

We may not be immortal, and we may not ever be free of suffering.  But we still have tons to be thankful for, thankful for existence itself.’**

What a shame to miss what is right under our noses.

I happened to hear some video game reviewers talking about the amazing reality in the soon-to-be-launched Red Dead Redemption II.  They were wowed about the detail to be experienced in the ordinary mundane things of life which are included in this game.  But this morning, I’d stepped outside to greet the day and, with the Winter approaching, noticed the cold seep through my clothes and bite at my skin.  And in the noticing, I was thankful.

Wallace Stevens writes of the poet:

‘His role, in short, is to help people to live their lives.’^

When we notice something and bring the attention others to it in some way – and the wonderful thing is, all notice something different – then we are acting like Stevens’ poet, helping people to be present to the one amazing life we have, rather than absent.

(*Georg Hegel, quoted in John O’Donohue’s Echoes of Memory.)
(**From gapingvoid’s blog: What are you thankful for?)
(^From Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel.)

How much did your organisation spend figuring out its values? […] statistically speaking you have just created a document that will be the source of one of the top five greatest reasons for contempt, demotivation, disloyalty, and turnover in your organisation. […] Organisations list values.  But they don’t live them.  And people hate that. […] They would rather not have organisational values than to see leaders live their opposites.’*
(Nancy Kline)

The ego self is by definition the unobserved self^, because once you see it, the game is over.**
Richard Rohr)

A value that doesn’t lead us into surprise is probably a value not worth having.

When Seth Godin encourages us to make better promises –

‘More generous.  More urgent.  More personal.’^ –

he’s opening up the possibilities for surprising others in a good and healthy way.

I’m re-reading James Carse’s book on finite and infinite games and he writes about how surprise is what the master player of finite games wants to avoid.  Introducing this master player, he writes:

‘It is the desire of all finite players to be Master Players, to be so perfectly skilled that nothing can surprise them, so perfectly trained that every move int he game is foreseen at the beginning.  A true Master Player plays as though the game is already in the past, according to a script whose every detail is known prior to the play itself.’^^

A value seen from the perspective of the finite game’s master player must either have known outcomes or not be allowed to get in the way of the overall outcomes, the only surprise should be their opponent’s:

‘Surprise in finite play is the triumph of the past over the future.’^^

This is not so for the infinite player, with values being their to explore, expand and express:

‘Infinite players, on the other hand, continue their play in the expectation of being surprised.  If surprise is no longer possible, all play ceases.  Surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite plays to continue.’^^

So much of what we call learning is in fact training, learning to negotiate the different sizes and colours of hoops:

‘To be prepared against surprise is to be trained.  To be prepared for surprises is to be educated.^^

I hope the reason for the finite player and finite organisation in quashing surprise is only because they’re not finding or making time to notice what is happening and how there’s a better way.  To slow down, to give one another a chance to think and speak and listen, holds out hope rather than hoops and, as Kline points out:

‘Slowing down speeds things up.’*

Here’s a blessing for surprise from John O’Donohue that we can live towards one another:

‘As a bird soars high
In the free holding of the wind,
Clear of the certainty of the ground,
Opening the imagination of wings
Into the grace of emptiness
To fulfil new voyagings,
May your life awaken
To the call of its freedom.’*^

May your life be hoopless.

(*From Nancy Kline’s More Time to Think.)
(**From Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now.)
(^From Seth Godin’s blog: Make better promises.)
(^^From James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.)
(*^From John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us: For Freedom.)

Perhaps the life we long for is beyond the point of no return.*
(Erwin McManus)

Some things we have only as they remain lost, some things are not lost only so long as they are distant.**
(Rebecca Solnit)

I took a moment to gaze at the beautiful dark cloud-mottled sky this morning as it waited for the arrival of the dawn.

Wonderful!

Wonder cannot be rushed.

We have to slow down to wonder.

I then read these words from John O’Donohue:

‘The sense of wonder can also help you to recognise and appreciate the mystery of your own life.’^

Whether the object of our wonder be without or within, it will not appear quickly:

‘But most of the turns, we don’t even see.  We’ve trained ourselves to ignore the. […] a choice isn’t often easy.  In fact the best ones rarely are.’^^

Choice is freedom and it comes from noticing more.  When we see more, we feel more, and when we feel more, we are able to do more.

Rebecca Solnit’s words, above, come from her reflecting on how the blue of distance disappears as we move towards it.

This blueness is a thing.  And it is not only a physical phenomenon but also a metaphor for our lives as we journey from here to there.

I take a moment to look up from Solnit’s words and the sky is ablaze with colour as the sun fires with orange the underside of the clouds.  I cannot keep this picture alive.  The sun will rise and the colour will evaporate, and will have to turn away and get on with my day.  But for a moment longer I stare.

Alan Lightman catches my attention as he writes about Absolutes.  He has been lying in a boat staring up at the stars:

‘I felt connected not only to the stars but to all of nature, and to the entire cosmos.  I felt a merging with something far larger than myself, a grand and eternal unity, a hint of something absolute.’*^

As a theoretical physicist, Lightman knows what these stars are made of and yet there is more to Absolutes than the physical:

‘Absolutes are rooted in personal experience, but they involve beliefs beyond that experience.  A fascinating feature of Absolutes – in fact, a defining feature – is that there is no way to get there from here, that is, from within the physical world.  There is no gradual, step-by-step path to go from relative truth to absolute truth, or to go from a long period of time to eternity, or from limited wisdom to the infinite wisdom of God.  The infinite is not merely a lot more of the finite.  Indeed the unattainability of the Absolutes may be part of their allure.’*^

I found myself thinking about how, whilst I am able to help people explore their dreams and identify their talents and help them choose the next steps, they will not automatically find their purpose and meaning within the universe.

Perhaps, on the way, something else happens?  If I slow down, if I take time to gaze awhile into the blueness.

I used to describe myself within the organisation I worked for more than thirty years as being patiently impatient.  I wanted things to happen but I was prepared to wait for the right time. Looking back, I don’t think I understood or found the rhythm for this.  Maybe now things are different.

The sunrise and its colourful garments are now passed but maybe something of its wonder has seeped into me, just a little, and maybe it has touched my soul a smidgen – this absolute me.

(*From Erwin McManus’ The Last Arrow.)
(**From Rebecca Slnoit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost.)
(^From John O’Donohue’s Eternal Echoes.)
(^^From Seth Godin’s blog: Degrees of Freedom.)
(*^From Alan Lightman’s Searching For Stars on an Island in Maine.)