Call for Phillip Morris! Call for Phillip Morris!
Once upon a time people spoke of “Getting the Call”. Getting the call consisted of feeling an internal obligation to serve the Creator of the Universe.
I think most people get the call at an early age, usually post adolescence. Most who do, do so in the throes of a very early romance, and mistake it for true love- having no idea what the latter is at all.
No, the call is something that you musty learn or be taught to ignore, and the media today is doing a good job of that.
I feel the call. I felt it at an early age. I felt it before I entered the seminary, and it’s a powerful physical feeling- a tension in the chest, if you will, for lack of a better explanation.
When you injure yourself, you favor the injured part- you don’t do to your bad knee what you know will hurt it, and you DO what you know will make it feel better. The call is like that, in that it lessens or increases based on what you’re doing. I could see the seminary wasn’t the Creator’s choice for me, and I left.
I feel the best, the tension in my chest is most relieved and soothed when I’m directly doing things for other people. Helping someone fix their car. Putting a roof on a friend’s home. Building an automation system that will help keep a business in the USA, keep people employed. Raising my child- THAT one feels really good.
I think everyone feels the call, the guiding hand of the creator towards the task He has assigned us. I think we are taught to ignore it. I think most of us become able to suppress that tiny voice altogether.
Do you hear the call anymore? What purpose had the creator in mind for you? Are you doing it? I’m not trying to preach or judge- but make you reflect a bit on this fine saturday AM and have a better day.
Heard it loud and clear.
Answered it immediately and very proud that I did so.
Right on… best sermon I have heard in ages! :-)
Heard the call, (9/11), signed on the Marines’ dotted line(s).
The Call, no matter what form it takes, is a voice that tells us to reach ever higher, to strive for better things, to treat all men as our brothers. The problem is interpreting it for our own use.
I heard it years ago, and it was the only thing that got me back into college at 24. Then I realized that the seminary wasn’t for me and the call was really to teach, so I started in on post-grad work. Then I realized how f***ed up the academy is and gave up on that to become a software engineer, and that’s when the call faded.
Like Heath, I felt the call again on 9/11 — but by then I was too old to sign on the dotted line.
So I just try to be the best human being I can be. I admit reverential awe for my Creator; I try to do unto my neighbor as I wish he should do unto me; and I try to keep myself (as the Boy Scout Oath says) physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.
And since I cannot fight the enemy on the physical battlefield, I fight him as best I can with words and deeds.
I hope someday to meet my Creator and be able to tell Him that I did the best I could, and to hear from Him in return that my life was not wasted.
I dunno. Maybe I’m too cynical, but I think very few good deeds go unpunished. I guess I do a service somehow teaching people about their system and history, just maintaining the political culture. But when you look at participation levels and voting rates, you wonder if people are paying attention at all. I know the check clears. Maybe it’s about a smaller universe than that; being a good friend or son or brother, and helping people on a small scale. I’d like to think I do that pretty well.
I am 41 years old and I have never ‘heard the call’. I thought I wanted to be a soldier once, but back in the days of Pierre Elliot TURDeau, the military was being downsized into a liberal joke. I grew up thinking I was an idiot thanks to my parents, and I suppose I was because I believed them. I was lost back then as I am today.
It’s not so bad. My daughter grew up well and made me proud. I am still married to the same woman. I have two cats and a dog and I spend lots of time shooting, camping and fishing. A fella could do much worse.
But how I envy all of you who know exactly what your mission is and how to go about it. I’m just winging it.