The hard hat was puzzling. It was after midnight. We were in a secure area with very few people. Any shift had long finished. Workers had left. Nobody looked like s/he was missing a hard hat to go with their outfit. If there was work to be done, I was at a loss to explain what type of work might be needed in a museum at this hour. In my reflective puzzle, I could hear a writer’s lament across time and generations: “A solitary person, completely alone – no children, no family, no friends – yet working obsessively late into the night, compulsively greedy for more and more, never bothering to ask, ‘Why am I working like a dog, never having any fun? And who cares?’ More smoke. A bad business.” (Ecclesiastes 4.8)
Life is filled with rhythms. I do not find any calling for a single note. The calling I see for all of us is a musical with Divinity that involves rest, action, appreciative pauses, and times of celebration. In our lifelong quest for growth, we have opportunities to discover what this looks and feels like. Your music will be different from mine. In the harmony that one finds in collaboration with Divinity, one brings beauty, awareness, and support to the places desperate to hear and experience compassion, kindness, and care.
Life invites us to work and rest. Hard hats have a place and time in one’s life, at least metaphorically. In giving oneself to work, one opens a following door to rest and recovery. The fruits of our labour can be shared and enjoyed with others. In our time of breaking bread, we remind ourselves of life’s greatest gift – relationship. I find my response to my calling as a reward in itself, even as Divinity reminds me there is more.
Dedication to living is a good thing! It took me far too long to hear and respond to Divinity’s invitation to living. Along the way, I lost opportunities that cannot be recovered. The invitation is still on the table. It’s time to live.
