Heart's Song Turns to Gold

We often work our bodies to exhaustion just to survive. If focus transforms to using our gifts and talents to serve God and others, and then opening self and family to being cared for in turn by God, no expenditure of excess energy would be required. We spend what is natural.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

How does one know what one is called to do? Follow your heart’s desires. Mine is to be a spouse, love and nurture children, write and create (sing, dance, paint). Creativity through the arts uplifts and feeds souls. To nurture and to feed souls, to teach, has been my calling in various forms throughout my life. All are called. All callings have value and all necessary to the whole.

Caring for a home is not necessarily a focus on material, but a focus on utilizing space to create a nest that nurtures souls. Nurturing souls within one’s home could be a calling. Money may be required to create this nest; therefore, money may be needed for one’s calling.

Earn money through one’s calling to further one’s calling…for example, earn through the teaching of another and then use those earnings to create a home in a manner that nurtures those that reside within its walls. In this way to live or exist is to heed the call and earning money is not distinguished from spending money. Money becomes an energy transfer between humans, something material representing relationship.

If a talent is resource earning and saving, then another talent could be resource giving, and both are necessary. For these talents to have the greatest impact they must be valued equally within the tribe or community. The accumulation of resources focuses on the material and is necessary for life; another most necessary talent would be feeding the tribe spiritually. This food is as much if not more of a necessity as our physical food. In fact, those united to the Divine offer up their lives and completely depend on the Holy One to feed them. He becomes their bread of life.

To illustrate, there are two priests shepherding one parish. One priest focuses on fundraising and providing for the physical environments for worship and education, while the other priest focuses on prayer, providing spiritual nourishment and succor for the flock. Both are very necessary and neither of more value than the other.

If a relationship is based on mutual service in, through and with Love, then money is a healthy tool in balance, BUT if a relationship is disordered, out of balance and based on self-seeking (for an individual, family, nation…) then money becomes part of the disorder and part of the problem. To solve this, one cannot focus on the tool, i.e., money, but on a relationship out of balance.

If we could only assimilate into our culture this principle that giving blesses us more than the amount we share. But, this is not the reason we must give as it is a self-focused reason. Instead give out of complete and total love and for no other reason or benefit to self. If we could give believing that we would receive nothing from our efforts, but gave anyway, because someone was in need of what we have, that is true giving of self. Give even more, your excess, and you will receive an even greater gift. Joy!

I imagine a world where we shared time for providing an income and creating our home with time for building relationship with the Eternal.

This may take the form of a shorter work week. For instance, no one needs to work more than 30 hours a week. In fact, working longer is discouraged as taking away from relationship building with God, with one’s family, and with one’s community. Therefore, we spend up to 30 hours of our week providing and creating our homes and the rest of the time is divided up in relationship building: the Divine, our families, and serving in our communities…the emphasis shifts from one of earning money to one of relationship with All. And the ideal would be if the "work" we did providing for ourselves and our families was in itself relationship-building with All.