E X P L O R E T H E S E L I F E C H A L L E N G E S . . . |
Unfold Your Wings and Watch Life Take OffPart 1 - Your Calling  Trees, bushes and shrubs enclose the small grass covered square. This place is a haven from the surrounding traffic and bustle. Others sense this. People gather to sit. Doves flock to graze. The spacious grass lawn has green and brown shades and is peppered with white daisies. Starlings energetically turn, climb and swoop in the sky above. All around are the growling mechanical sounds of a city at work.
Your Calling Can Increase Creativity Many Thousand FoldIn today's bustling, fast changing world, it is more important than ever to draw on our innate creativity to help us find new job opportunities, create new businesses, master new techniques and methods, and nurture new relationships. Whether you are an artist, businessperson, scientist, government employee, charity worker or politician, inner guidance can really help you with your work. That is because the call comes from an amazing source – the same source as created the stars, the clouds, the trees and the animals – the source that created you! So whatever your problem you can listen within for an answer. You may feel your problems are huge. Maybe you have a very responsible job and you feel beset by difficulties. Your creative sense can easily solve these problems. I remember in 1993, when I was working as a volunteer at Oxfam, (a leading charity in the UK for assisting developing countries), I felt strongly drawn to create a project for a developing county. I did not have a country in mind but I knew that if I could raise a large sum of money the project would soon appear. So I had to find a way of raising a significant amount of money without drawing on Oxfam's staff time or resources. Here was a task I really cared about, but what could I do? I turned to the call. That evening I went home early. As I cycled through the wet city streets, I reflected on the task ahead. How could I go about raising a large amount of money for Oxfam? I simply did not know. It was raining. The streets were busy with commuters returning from work. As I cycled up Botanic Avenue I could see people scurrying in and out of the many coffee bars, restaurants and hotels. I cycled on up the hill and into Botanic Gardens. It was autumn. The park was resplendent in gold, brown and the kind of rustic red only found at this time of year. I felt a curious potential, as if something significant just might be possible, although I had no idea what. After tea that evening, I retired to my office upstairs. The room was filled with the clutter associated with my everyday paperwork. I sat in my favourite chair. The clock on the wall was ticking in a regular soothing rhythm as the seconds passed by. I fell silent. I held my intension to raise money for Oxfam lovingly in my heart. I began to listen to my calling. Initially nothing happened. Then as I continued to listen, I received the feeling that we needed help. I received the feeling that we needed a lot of help. I stayed with this feeling, not trying to change it, or alter it in any way. I simply allowed the feeling to grow and develop. Then ideas began to form around the feeling. In my mind's eye a galaxy of ideas were swirling half formed, like a giant kaleidoscope. I simply watched as they formed, grew and died. I seemed to be drawing on my whole life experience for inspiration. Then out of the mists of memory something began to consolidate and take shape, the milkmen of Northern Ireland! In Northern Ireland, as in the rest of the UK, milkmen deliver milk fresh every morning to family doorsteps. They visited hundreds of thousands of homes in Northern Ireland every morning. I remembered that they had run a Christmas appeal by collecting tins of food and shipping them to Eastern Europe. Could this be the help we needed? I resolved to act on my idea.
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