Knowing Our Calling

Earlier this year I left a program after four years of preparatory courses because I realized that the goal that I had been pursuing was not my calling. There are different ways to help others, and I realized as I approached 70 chronologically but feeling more like 38 physically and mentally that I needed to explore what aging means to me: it seems so sad that we go from the child who is asked "How old are you?" and who replies: "I'm eight but I will be nine in October" to the college student proud of being 21 and entering graduate school to the teacher who loves being 30, to the woman who knows 45 is the best yet, to the older woman looking forward to retirement, to the person who tries to hide her age with hair dye, make up, and sees the rest of her life as all down hill.

What? How can that be? Where has the enthusiasm for learning and becoming more and more of who we are gone? Yes, death is the end of this life, but until death comes, we need to live with the enthusiasm of that child looking forward and that young woman who dreamed huge dreams. We need to fly on our own course and celebrate our age because our age is not only a number, it is a marker of the new things we are doing.

I hadn't knitted for years, but seeing some beautiful yarn in a discount store two years ago, I felt called to knit. I bought it, and the much younger friend with me asked, what would I do with the yarn. I knitted a scarf and a hat for my daughter, then bought more yarn and knitted scarves for my husband's daughters, then ribbed hats for all 11 grandchildren, and then, not wanting to knit sweaters and stuff, I looked around and thought: knit for those who can use knitted things.

So to make this project large enough to make a difference, I took my knitting to church one Sunday, and sat in the parish hall and had a Tom Sawyer moment. People came over with their coffee, sat down, "what are you doing?", "I'm knitting scarves for people in a shelter," and then "can I help" they asked, and today, many of those people are in a group called Stitches. We knit; we crochet; we tie flannel into blankets for children; and we sew beautiful fabrics into fun lap quilts for children who use wheel chairs.

I look at all we have done and I realize that I spend as much time and effort and research on this project as I did when I was doing my dissertation or teaching at Boston University or returning to the job market as a marketing communications researcher, writer, and project manager.

You see, this isn't about working at a specific thing; it is all about doing what we are called to do, and I now realize that I have never done anything without having been called to do it. That doesn't end with retirement; that work isn’t reduced by aging. This is the soul looking out from within us for things to do to make the world a better place, a more humane place, a more fun place, a more loving place, . . . a more spiritual place.

Aging does have an impact on what I do: I have much more understanding of myself and what I can do, as well as more compassion for others. I am reminded of all that I have previously been called to do, and I realize that I will continue answering those calls for the rest of my life. (see June 18, 2011: Picture the Behavior and Make It Happen)

It was true then, and it is true now. Now more than ever in many different ways, ways of using my talents keep opening, much like the words of a song: "whatever spirit wants of me, I will be, I will be, I will be."

It took me many years to realize what the words of that song mean: we all have a calling that we can summarize in a few words like my learning new things and telling others. Knowing that calling, it is easier to recognize what is ours to do and doors keep opening, taking me into many ways of growing as me.