"Necessary Fire"

A few thoughts on the ageless questions: Who am I? and What is the purpose of my life?

Sue Monk Kidd & Ann Kidd Taylor, Student Address, Columbia College

“The novelist John Gardner suggested that the true search in life is for one’s  “necessary fire.” I believe he was referring to the genuine, inborn desire in one’s heart– the one that feels required, as if it is part of your purpose for being here. Your necessary fire is an endeavor that holds the possibility to bring you alive, but also one with which you have a deep compatibility, a true affinity …

Find a purpose grand enough for your life, and whatever your necessary fire turns out to be, remember that in some way it is necessary for the world, too. Try to love the world despite what you see out there. Go, make your big, beautiful dent.  And as you do, come down often on the side of boldness. If you err, may it be for too much audacity, not too little. For you really are enough. You have untold strengths and undreamed resources inside of you. You have your glorious self.”

Frederick Buechner:

“You are called to the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”    

‎

Let’s not miss the reality of our inner self through inattention:

Friedrick Buechner

"We are all of us more mystics than we believe or choose to believe...We have seen more than we let on, even to ourselves. Through some moment of beauty or pain, some subtle turning of our lives, we catch glimmers at least of what the saints are blinded by; only then, unlike the saints, we go on as though nothing has happened."

"Hidden Places" - where new beginnings are birthed

 “For a New Beginning” 
 by John O’Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,

Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming,

Waiting until you were ready to emerge…

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.