You are Infinitely more than Your Calling

[nuclearfuels]

Have a nice day.

[Ahab]

A very simple truth.  A very obvious fact. We are all that we are as well as all that we do and have ever done.  Does it serve some purpose to simply state this fact?  Of course we are infinitely more than our calling!  Who would think otherwise?  Anybody?

[Kenngo1969]

I am a Human-Divine Being, not a human-divine doing.

[MustardSeed]

Let's not pretend that people can't get pretty wrapped up in depending on their church position to provide them with identity and importance.  

Nuclear, its a legit reminder.

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Let's not pretend that people can't get pretty wrapped up in depending on their church position to provide them with identity and importance.  

Nuclear, its a legit reminder.

I think it's also a great reminder because a lot callings are really hard, thankless, and come with people being angry at you for whatever reasons.  It's good to remember, when a calling is giving you anxiety and taking more than it's giving back, that you are a volunteer trying to do a job you didn't ask for or want to the best of your ability because you love Jesus, and He is the one who matters.

[cherryTreez]

I don't understand thinking you are important because of your calling. I have never thought I was anything because of my calling. I also never want to be in leadership roles again. I may have to be seen in a bar if it happens or get more interesting piercings and maybe more tattoos.  Like on my arms, very visible. 

 

I hope my husband never gets those calls as well. I don't want my kids judged like that. It's so hard on kids. I would think of moving if he ever gets called into the bishopric. I want to move and that would the push I need to make it happen. 

[nuclearfuels]

All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that you love
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
And all you create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet (everyone you meet)
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

[nuclearfuels]

On 11/6/2020 at 8:22 PM, MustardSeed said:

Let's not pretend that people can't get pretty wrapped up in depending on their church position to provide them with identity and importance.  

Nuclear, its a legit reminder.

I wonder sometimes if the idea that a certain type or form of social conditioning is the fault of the hearers/listeners only

[Bernard Gui]

On 11/6/2020 at 5:22 PM, MustardSeed said:

 Let's not pretend that people can't get pretty wrapped up in depending on their church position to provide them with identity and importance.  

Nuclear, its a legit reminder.

We should also acknowledge that having a calling can provide importance, meaning, and a rewarding sense of accomplishment to our lives.

[Bernard Gui]

On 11/6/2020 at 9:00 PM, cherryTreez said:

I don't understand thinking you are important because of your calling. I have never thought I was anything because of my calling. I also never want to be in leadership roles again. I may have to be seen in a bar if it happens or get more interesting piercings and maybe more tattoos.  Like on my arms, very visible. 

 

I hope my husband never gets those calls as well. I don't want my kids judged like that. It's so hard on kids. I would think of moving if he ever gets called into the bishopric. I want to move and that would the push I need to make it happen. 

Reading this, I reflect on the many blessings and experiences Sister Gui and I have had that we could not have had any other way. There were times we may have felt we wanted to flee a calling, but in the end we received much more than we could have imagined. 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

A calling is simply an opportunity to serve someone.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Bernard Gui

[Kenngo1969]

6 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that you love
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
And all you create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet (everyone you meet)
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

I like some of Pink Floyd's songs, too.  Your point?

[katherine the great]

8 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

A calling is simply an opportunity to serve someone.

That’s how I’ve always seen them. I especially appreciated them when I was too lazy to look for service opportunities on my own. This phase of my life has given me almost more opportunities than I can handle so I’m grateful that my calling is temporarily on hold. 😊

[cherryTreez]

11 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Reading this, I reflect on the many blessings and experiences Sister Gui and I have had that we could not have had any other way. There were times we may have felt we wanted to flee a calling, but in the end we received much more than we could have imagined. 

We have had many callings. I know too many kids who felt abandoned by their parents for callings. I will not do that to my children. There is a time and season for all things. 

     I feel like we never saw my husband with his last calling. His vacation days were spent on church stuff. It was not fun and I will not do it at this point in my life.  For a church that claims family is everything, many callings take away so much from the family.

[Bernard Gui]

26 minutes ago, cherryTreez said:

We have had many callings. I know too many kids who felt abandoned by their parents for callings. I will not do that to my children. There is a time and season for all things. 

     I feel like we never saw my husband with his last calling. His vacation days were spent on church stuff. It was not fun and I will not do it at this point in my life.  For a church that claims family is everything, many callings take away so much from the family.

That’s one way to look at it.

[rodheadlee]

7 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I like some of Pink Floyd's songs, too.  Your point?

Some of us communicate with songs because we lack the words to express our feelings. 

[3DOP]

53 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Some of us communicate with songs because we lack the words to express our feelings. 

Deleted. Unnecessarily combative about something I should not care about.

Edited November 8, 2020 by 3DOP

[mfbukowski]

16 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

I wonder sometimes if the idea that a certain type or form of social conditioning is the fault of the hearers/listeners only

Wow.

Big question- seriously 

"The blood and sins of this generation"

And we baby boomers get all that on us?  And then the people who wrote that-  seriously heavy stuff-  no joke.  Thanks.

I mean I used to literally be in demonstrations waving Mao's red book.... I know a little about cultural revolutions.  Nowadays I get flashbacks... 

  OK, better stop there.....   

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by mfbukowski

[The Nehor]

I sometimes doubt I will ever rise higher than my callings but the idea that I can be more is inspiring. Following through on that inspiration would probably be exhausting though.

[Ahab]

I consider callings from the Lord or his reps in the Church to be opportunities to serve in some capacity that not only provides some benefit for those I serve but also help me to grow spiritually in some particular way.  Like how serving as a bishop helps the bishop to develop the virtue of charity/love for those he serves, which is one of the greatest spiritual virtues if not the greatest virtue any person can have, while also providing services to those the bishop helps in some way.  But of course a bishop is still more than his calling helps him to be, both positive and negative, so at some point the Lord or his reps in the Church will give that man some other calling(s) to help to refine him and challenge him in some other ways.  To paraphrase something that I know Brigham Young said, if something doesn't kill you it can still help you to become a better person... and even if we die while serving the Lord or his reps in the Church we will be better off than if we did not serve them.

[bluebell]

On 11/8/2020 at 11:32 AM, cherryTreez said:

We have had many callings. I know too many kids who felt abandoned by their parents for callings. I will not do that to my children. There is a time and season for all things. 

     I feel like we never saw my husband with his last calling. His vacation days were spent on church stuff. It was not fun and I will not do it at this point in my life.  For a church that claims family is everything, many callings take away so much from the family.

I remember when a very active and faithful teenage girl stood up in testimony meeting and cried about how upset she was that her mother was called as the stake RS president.  She talked about how she had been a ward RS president and was never home and how happy she had been when she was released and then devastated when she was shortly called to the stake because she knew her mother was going to be busy again.  I felt so badly for her.

Sometimes I think we have a mindset in the church that callings are supposed to be all about sacrifice and struggle and putting family second and that if we aren't doing those things we are failing.  I think that is a cultural expectation that we should let die.  Most callings can be done without making our families suffer or being absent from them, if we would just utilize the resources (and people) God gave us to help us, and stop thinking that elaborate activities and/or other "busy work" is how God judges whether or not a calling is being fulfilled.  

I think that a lot of male leadership callings could especially benefit from a re-working of what the fulfilling the calling should look like, with more thought taken for keeping the husband in the home more than he is away from it.

Some sacrifice is necessary.  But I don't believe God is wanting us to put our children and spouses on the altar and trade them for a few years in a leadership calling.  

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I remember when a very active and faithful teenage girl stood up in testimony meeting and cried about how upset she was that her mother was called as the stake RS president.  She talked about how she had been a ward RS president and was never home and how happy she had been when she was released and then devastated when she was shortly called to the stake because she knew her mother was going to be busy again.  I felt so badly for her.

Sometimes I think we have a mindset in the church that callings are supposed to be all about sacrifice and struggle and putting family second and that if we aren't doing those things we are failing.  I think that is a cultural expectation that we should let die.  Most callings can be done without making our families suffer or being absent from them, if we would just utilize the resources (and people) God gave us to help us, and stop thinking that elaborate activities and/or other "busy work" is how God judges whether or not a calling is being fulfilled.  

I think that a lot of male leadership callings could especially benefit from a re-working of what the fulfilling the calling should look like, with more thought taken for keeping the husband in the home more than he is away from it.

Some sacrifice is necessary.  But I don't believe God is wanting us to put our children and spouses on the altar and trade them for a few years in a leadership calling.  

I have had a number of demanding callings. I have always been counseled to make and keep family time sacred. That was not always easy, but we did the best we could. I never felt that I was required to sacrifice my family, and Sister Gui was a wonderful facilitator, for example always arranging to have dinner together. We were often blessed with “extra” time that seemed to come out of the blue.

Reminds me of a scene from The Chosen by Chaim Potok. Reuven Malter is visiting his friend Danny Saunders for Sabbath dinner. Both their fathers are scholars or rabbis...the former Orthodox and the latter Hassidic. The phone rings. One of Danny’s family answers and says, “Sorry. The rabbi does not answer the phone on the Sabbath.” There were times I wanted to have my family use that line! Fewer phone calls was one of the biggest changes we noticed when I was released. I suppose today it would be emails and text messages.

Once I was attending a regional Priesthood training meeting.  The speaker was encouraging bishops to delegate more responsibility to their counselors. I was a counselor at the time and felt pretty busy myself. So I looked through the Handbook to list the meetings I was already “supposed” to attend each month. Counting Sunday services, there were over eighty. After the meeting, I went up to the speaker and showed him the results. He was quite surprised. 😄

On the other hand, there are secular positions that put even more demand on people to put work ahead of family time. I know both men and women who fall into this trap, so I don’t blame it all on the Church. A combination of the two, Church and job,  can prove very difficult. One who successfully  navigates those waters gets a tip of my hat. My bishop-son Abogadissimo is one to whom I remove that hat.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Bernard Gui

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

I have had a number of demanding callings. I have always been counseled to make and keep family time sacred. That was not always easy, but we did the best we could. I never felt that I was required to sacrifice my family, and Sister Gui was a wonderful facilitator, for example always arranging to have dinner together. We were often blessed with “extra” time that seemed to come out of the blue.

Reminds me of a scene from The Chosen by Chaim Potok. Reuven Malter is visiting his friend Danny Saunders for Sabbath dinner. Both their fathers are scholars or rabbis...the former Orthodox and the latter Hassidic. The phone rings. One of Danny’s family answers and says, “Sorry. The rabbi does not answer the phone on the Sabbath.” There were times I wanted to have my family use that line! Fewer phone calls was one of the biggest changes we noticed when I was released. I suppose today it would be emails and text messages.

Once I was attending a regional Priesthood training meeting.  The speaker was encouraging bishops to delegate more responsibility to their counselors. I was a counselor at the time and felt pretty busy myself. So I looked through the Handbook to list the meetings I was already “supposed” to attend each month. Counting Sunday services, there were over eighty. After the meeting, I went up to the speaker and showed him the results. He was quite surprised. 😄

On the other hand, there are secular positions that put even more demand on people to put work ahead of family time. I know both men and women who fall into this trap, so I don’t blame it all on the Church. A combination of the two, Church and job,  can prove very difficult. One who successfully  navigates those waters gets a tip of my hat. My bishop-son Abogadissimo is one to whom I remove that hat.

Many good thoughts.  Thank you.  I think we need to remember that each person who accepts a calling is personally accountable to the Lord for how he or she serves in that calling, and that any level of service he or she provides will be rewarded.

Sometimes it seems that some people think they need to do EVERYTHING they can think of to offer an honorably acceptable level of service, to the point of not keeping up with the stewardship of their own nuclear family, which I believe is not good.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Ahab

[nuclearfuels]

On 11/10/2020 at 11:50 AM, bluebell said:

I think that a lot of male leadership callings could especially benefit from a re-working of what the fulfilling the calling should look like, with more thought taken for keeping the husband in the home more than he is away from it.

I see this being accomplished by the re-org that moved YM to the Bishopric. Those youth callings w/ BSA were incredibly demanding

[nuclearfuels]

On 11/8/2020 at 6:25 AM, Kenngo1969 said:

I like some of Pink Floyd's songs, too.  Your point?

You are infinitely more than your callings, as are each and every one of us.