People are born in marble, I see that now. Slabs at birth. Chipped at with the pick of time. The culture we are born into, the people we share space with and the genes we are handed down shape the statue left standing at the end. However, we can always take the chisel ourselves. Rather than leaving ourselves to someone else's hands, we can use our own.
It takes dedication to know your calling
Unlike the mythology we’ve been given, where knowing our purpose is meant to happen to us spontaneously in a moment, it can require time. There is a distance we need to walk to know ourselves first. To acknowledge parts of ourselves we are unaware of that without awareness, will cause us to be oblivious to our calling.
Imagine Michelangelos’ Pieta. This statue that resides in the Vatican depicts Mary holding Jesus. Crucified. The beauty is horrifyingly real. Now imagine the marble that was cut from a mountain. Plain and ordinary. Yet through the careful skill of Michelangelo he brought forth an artistic marvel. Painstaking hours were laid at the feet of the slab until its form was realised. Your vocation acts in much the same way.
When people don’t know their calling it’s normally because they’re unaware of what lays dormant within
They can’t see themselves fully. They may capture glimpses every now and then in their mind of what they could become, but don’t trust their own hands to bring it out. Frequently people need guidance to know what their potential may look like in a practical grounded form. Because otherwise, potential turns to panic at the thought of never seeing it.
In guiding people towards their potential I will often seek to refine general, wide ranging self-knowledge. To map it out in detail. I work with a lot of creative people who will tell me that they wish to use their creativity in their work. This is great but doesn’t help answer how creativity might be used in their path. Will it look like creatively solving a clash in scheduling or signature editing in wedding photographs or blending unexpected genres in a film. It requires chipping away to find the vital details.
There is no shortcut to doing the work required to reveal your calling
The world is full of 30 day plans and quick fixes. Perhaps making us think it should happen in an instant. And yet when we have been living in a world that asks us to be someone we are not for years, to expect a quick turnaround is to not fully comprehend the problem. Revealing hidden parts of ourselves is the task and many of these parts are hidden for a reason. For example, not pursuing mysticism outside of christianity because you grew up in a christian household may be why this part of you is hidden.
This is why it takes both dedication and care to slowly reveal your calling. Because to tap into our calling we need an awareness of self. However that awareness can be blocked because of our life circumstances. Yet, by dedicating ourselves to knowing what the image that lies beneath it is. Giving us a sense of conviction that this is the path. We need then to chip away at ourselves until we are revealed.
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