The Cry

There is a muffled cry arising around me. It is the cry of men and women who find themselves rent in two, with one part called to make a living and the other part called to pursue a passion, whether that be in the arts or some other endeavor that seems less practical than the money-earning part.

I hear this cry everywhere I go. In one conversation after another, friends, family, acquaintances utter the same cry for an integration of their highest joy, their highest purpose in the world, with the time-consuming process of putting roofs over heads and food on tables.

This cry is not new, nor is it one that has been unheard. It arises out of the belly of a culture that, for many of us, preached "the responsible path" and labelled as "naive" the notion that our passion could also be our living. Recent generations have challenged this mythos, and entire consulting and coaching careers have been created around helping people through this.

Moonlight Mermaid: By Tom Goddard, 2005What I notice, however, in the conversations with those in my life who share this vision of the integration of passion and career, along with frustrations over how hard this integration can be to accomplish, is that most don't see themselves as part of a community. In fact, if "community" has as a component of its definition a self-awareness of belonging by its members, then, at least for these, my friends and neighbors, there is no community. There is only the primordial chaos of humans with similar visions and frustrations, unaware of the deep connection with so many others.

So, here's how I begin on this topic: those of us for whom integration of passion and career is both vital and a work-in-progress, are members of a community in utero, a community that requires, as a first step, a self-recognition in order for its further development. We must see not only our own longing, and that of our friends, for this integration, but also the urgent need for our world for our fully integrated selves to make an appearance on the world scene.

For our cry for integration, coupled with our cry for community, is matched by the cry of the world for our gifts.