Mandates are interesting to watch over time. Across the spectrum, business, politics, community, relationship, and even personal, mandates come with an initial euphoria and sense of possibilities. What follows, individual response, community impact, and the reactions of everyone touched and observing, can dramatically change how one looks at the mandate. Was it a blessing or a curse? Was it a call to action or reflection? Was it a real mandate or just a passing thought?
I have no idea what the current political mandate is or is not. I do know that it has changed multiple times over the past few months. What was is no longer. What could be only lives in our imagination. What will be is the present moment we have.
While I cannot speak to the specific of your life, I do know that we share a common mandate. As one before us observed, “we’re on our way through it, following orders, doing what God commanded when he said, I’ve set you up as light to all nations. You’ll proclaim salvation to the four winds and seven seas!” (Acts 13.47) At times, the mandate seems confusing. In my life, clarity has come as I embrace the following.
Compassion is more than a calling; it is a way of living. We can use our freedom to embrace compassion in the nuances of our lives, letting it permeate our thoughts, views, and actions.
Hope is a choice that in turn creates a reality. Hope will always come from within as we recognize the Universal Truth that makes its home there.
Community can be a way of seeing one’s self. It is more than just others. It is the reality of the Other resting and living within.
Some will see these mandates as a burden, something being forced on us at our expense. I see them quite differently. Each is an invitation into the More of living. Each is an opportunity to experience what it means to be Divine. Each is an open door, available to all, an invitation to live and work in heaven.
