Part of the time I attended Kirkman Technical High School in the 11th grade, I rode to school with J.C. Blankenship. A few years ago he called and said he had just found a notebook I left in his car way back then.
My curiosity was overwhelming, so I dashed over to his home to pick it up. It was a book of poems, including one of my first songs. There were excerpts from Browning, Edna St. Vincent Millay, other great poets and a brief snip from a novel by Sinclair Lewis.
Like a book from some prophet, that book foretold my future. It said, "You will be a poet and a songwriter. You will love and cherish words and thoughts."
All my life I have heard people say, "I wonder what God wants me to do? What is my calling?" Emerson said, "Our calling is in our talents." It's no big mystery. Your calling is literally branded into you in the form of your talents. It speaks to you all the time through the things you love to do and the things you do well with ease and grace.
It can even speak to you through a notebook you left in a car decades ago. You may not recognize what it is saying to you for a while, but if you sit quietly and think about it, it will speak to you
One thing that really strips my gears is a woman who says, "I am just a housewife." Look at all the skills it takes to be a good homemaker. You're a nurse, counselor, chef, hygienist, lover, listener, hugger, helper, administrator, planner, buyer - on and on goes the litany of needed skills.
Be proud you are the manager of a human dwelling place, social center, cafeteria, health clinic, classroom and recreation center. I am not at all certain I would have succeeded in life if my mother hadn't been such a good homemaker. I needed a lot of help. I am so glad she did not have an outside job and was able to devote her time and talents to me, my brother, my sister and my father.
Even what a homemaker puts on the walls of the home can have lifeime meaning for a child. I remember on our living room wall a little decoupaged picture of a robin and a sparrow with this poem: Said the robin to the sparrow / Friend I'd really like to know / Why these anxious human beings rush about and hurry so / Said the sparrow to the robin / Friend I think that it must be / That they have no heavenly Father / Such as cares for you and me.
Sometimes we have to do other kinds of work so we can have the money to do our real lifework. I went to hear the great songwriter Dickey Lee at Memorial Auditorium, and he said, "I really don't care for travel and doing these shows, but I love to write songs. So I do shows to feed my songwriting habit."
Who you are and what you are to be digs into your very being early in life. Just open your eyes and see it. Open your heart and feel it. And let nothing keep you from doing it.
E-mail Dalton Roberts at DownhomeP@aol.com.