What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “Call of Duty”? Honor? Sacrifice? X-Box? For all of us it brings up something different based on our life experiences or that of a loved one. I think of my Grandpa Jack who was held by Germans as a prisoner of war. I can’t imagine what he went through and how it must have effected who he was for the rest of his life.
While the phrase “Call of Duty” has an emotional charge, it also has a sobering effect. It gives pause to think: What in my life do I view as a call to duty? What aspects of my life are so important that they are a calling? My parents, significant other or children? An organization that serves those with mental illness, cancer or homelessness? The list is endless.
What are these relationships calling out? How does serving them serve what is important inside each one of us? It is through the very nature of these relationship that we are lifting up one another.
A call of duty is usually about someone else. But what callings do we have for ourself? The more we tap in to the truths about who we are and what we value, the better we understand where our callings and duties lie. Our callings are not fixed. As our lives move forward we find new callings awakening.
The more we understand how each important relationship in our life is its own calling, the better we serve one another. The more we understand the truths that live inside of us, the better we can serve those higher callings. All around and inside of us are callings- it’s ours to choose how we answer.
Any examples of questions to better probe who we are and what we value?
I find that understanding the truths about me is less an intellectual process and more being aware of how a thought, topic, an action, words or a person lights me up internally. Over the years I have tried to tune into this part of me. Once I have identified another truth about what resonates within me, I effectively set my internal radar to be looking for these experiences. This has the benefit of me seeking out and finding opportunities to express them in my everyday life. It has a tremendous building effect. Am I answering your question?
Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act. While injustice anywhere may be a threat to justice everywhere, the higher up the food chain we see that injustice, the more profound is our duty. Those who dare object will be subject of that good ol’ boy 19th century style character assassination; but even that kind of inequity has become institutionalized cronyism, nepotism, and ignorance. When does the struggle against it become so onerous as to be suicidal? What is the cost of apathy?