When my sister Cindy is in a jocular mood, she sometimes tells me that I have “Joan of Arc” syndrome. What she means is that I get these visions, and just have to do whatever it is that gets stuck in my head. Sometimes it’ll be to write something that Spirit whispered to me last week, but sometimes it’s just an urge to fry up some of my famous chicken and cheese egg rolls. An urge so strong that I’ll drive out though the rain to buy those little eggroll wrappy things. It’s my sister’s task to remind me that sometimes, the “duck and cover” approach beats charging into the fray like Joan of Arc did.

Those visions are how God talks to me, and I talk back by letting go and following, which is the case with articles and egg rolls. But other times I’ll work and sweat for something and end up not getting it anyway. This happened a few years back when I was called to apply for this certain job, a vocation really. After nearly a year of waiting, it didn’t happen. Why would Spirit tell me to do this and then pull it out from under? Much later, I realized that it was the “process” that I needed to experience, the process of finding out what it would take to get me to give up my comfortable life. This year when the question came up again, the answer was easy. Living our right path is how we converse with the divine, even if we don’t know what we’re doing or where we’re going.

One person who lived her calling was “Peace Pilgrim,” a woman who walked across America over seven times as a living prayer for peace. She vowed, “I shall remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until I am given shelter and fasting until I am given food.” She knew that Spirit would arrange for food, shelter, and new sneakers just as they were needed, kind of like “just-in-time” order fulfillment. When she turned herself over to that knowledge, that truth, she was not homeless and hungry, but filled with abundance. Her biography describes her calling: “She walks as a prayer and as a chance to inspire others to pray and work with her for peace. She walks without a penny in her pockets and she is not affiliated with any organization. She feels we have learned that war is not the way to peace – that security does not lie in stockpiles of bombs.” Peace Pilgrim walked in step with God, taking nothing with her but her faith that she could teach the way to inner peace, the first step toward global peace.

As much as I’d like to live that life, traveling never has agreed with me. Still, I’m pretty sure that regular people can live with such faith, even if it’s not quite as high profile. God gave me the gifts that make me who I am, but it’s what I do with those gifts that measures our relationship. The gifts of words and food and singing are my way, the easy way to talk back. The thing is, God doesn’t care about my “productivity,” only that we are in relationship with one another. Even while I’m doing these things that seem more spiritual, the still small voice tells me that even a small act of being present is a prayer.

What are you doing with your gifts that speaks to Spirit? Could you be a little more patient next time a friend is upset over some silly thing? Could you catch a spider and release it outside instead of squashing it? Could you put off the vacuuming for another ten minutes and meditate in the setting sun? Could you live like Joan of Arc did and believe in your vision so much that you would die for it? Maybe you would, and maybe it doesn’t matter, but either way I’m going to keep on frying up those egg rolls and charging into the fray – whatever God wants, I’m ready.

Copyright August, 1999

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