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MY SUNDAY JOURNAL
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
2-16-03
WHO WE ARE DIGS IN EARLY
A boy I rode to school with in the 11th grade really shocked me about a
year ago. He called and said he had just found a notebook I left in his
car way back then.
I went to get it immediately. It was a book of poems, including one of
my first songs. Most were excerpts from Browning, Edna Saint Vincent
Millay, other great poets and a brief snip from a novel by Sinclair
Lewis.
Like a book from some prophet, that book foretold my future. It
screamed, "You will be a poet, a songwriter, and author. You will
love and cherish words and thoughts."
We stagger through life mumbling, "I wonder what God wants me to
do? What is my calling?"
Hey, it's no big mystery. God has branded it in your soul. It manifests
all the time as talents and interests.
Emerson said, "Our calling is in our talents." Joseph Campbell
called it "finding our bliss." Those things you love and do
well are your calling. You're as branded as any steer on a western
ranch.
One thing that really strips my gears is a woman who says, "I am
just a housewife." Look at all the skills it takes to be a good
homemaker. You're a nurse, counselor, chef, hygienist, lover, listener,
hugger, helper, administrator, planner, buyer - on and on goes the
litany of needed skills.
Be proud you are the manager of a human dwelling place, social center,
cafeteria, health clinic, classroom and recreation center. I am not at
all certain I would have succeeded in life if my mother hadn't been such
a good homemaker. I needed a lot of help.
Even what you put on the walls of the home can have lifetime meaning for
your children. I remember on our living room wall a little decoupaged
picture of a Robin and a Sparrow with this poem: Said the Robin to the
Sparrow/Friend I'd really like to know/Why these anxious human beings
rush about and hurry so/Said the Sparrow to the Robin/Friend I think
that it must be/That they have no heavenly Father/Such as cares for you
and me.
Sometimes we have to do other kinds of work so we can have the money to
do our real work. I went to hear the great songwriter Dickey Lee put on
a show and he said, "I really don't care for travel and doing these
shows but I love to write songs. So I do shows to feed my songwriting
habit."
Who you are and what you are to be digs into your soul very early. Just
open your eyes and see it. Open your heart and feel it. And let nothing
keep you from doing it.
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