“…a true vocation calls us out beyond ourselves, breaks our heart in the process and then humbles, simplifies and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that enticed us in the first place.”

(David Whyte)

What does it mean to commit…?

Not to a ‘something’, not to a grand project, not even to someone.

Just to being ourselves.

The prayer flags in my local woodlands adorn a tree covered with messages of community and goodwill. It seems that a ‘class’ has gathered and they are pledging to their support to each other as they become the best version of themselves over the coming years.

I wonder how it will work out?

I spent years being fully committed. My organisations became ‘the cause’, the deeper purpose of my efforts. I would be fully enrolled; trying my hardest to be a great team player. I would find ease and security in groups, but rarely consider the compromises. So when my organisations changed and crumbled, as they inevitably do, I would be battered and bruised by my efforts to prop them up, fighting to preserve my sense of safety and value in the icons and edifices they provided.

But as I look at the prayer flags, I realise that they were never intended to show devotion to a deity. Rather, they show a commitment to the whole; to a sense of balance between the elements, and the spread of goodwill and positive energy.

As our organisations struggle and offices stand empty, our familiar structures are shifting quickly. Our whole sense of ‘organisation’ is being challenged and questions of commitment will arise. We can expect our hearts to break as our institutions and organisations fail. Yet without their facades or fabrications, we can turn towards work that best serves the world.

Yet even before we commit to the whole, to our communities, to each other, we need to make a deeper, more profound commitment.

Just to being ourselves.

Notes:

My photograph of the prayer flags is on my wall as a constant reminder towards selflessness and positivity. Like most of us, there are days when I need that.

In ‘The Invitation’, Oriah Mountain Dreamer invites us to look at the harder, more immediate edges of commitment. She asks: “I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.” Her chapter, ‘The Commitment,’ discusses the ease we can feel when duty is laid out for us and then, in the moment when everything feels impossible, to surrender to the tasks life demands of us. ‘In this place there is no more trying. There is only being and what needs to be done.’

I’ve appreciated Peter Block’s wisdom for many years. In ‘The Answer to How is Yes’ he asks us to balance a life that works with a life that counts. As he poses the question, “What commitment am I willing to make?”, he notes that “This question recognises that if change is to occur, it will come from my own free choice, not from the investment of an institution or the transformation of others.”

Finally, I’m always slightly haunted by Annie Dillard’s quote in ‘The Writing Life’; “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Maybe I should put that on my wall too?

See also:

Renewal

Belonging