Everyone is Called

About this poem

Everyone is called, but only few hear. In First Samuel 3 of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, we learn of the story of young 12-year old Samuel, who awoke from a sleep in the middle of the night when he heard a voice ( unknown to him, the voice of the Holy Spirit) call out his name, not once, not twice, but thrice; its persistence and urgency disturbing him deeply, compounded by his ignorance, his uncertainty, and his utter incomprehension of what he was experiencing. At the third instance of calling, Samuel consults Eli, the High Priest, old and of poor sight, nearly blind, whom Samuel serves as caretaker, and assumes that Eli is calling him. The High Priest Eli instructs Samuel that if he hears the calling a fourth time, he is to respond without questioning, with compassion, and therapeutically to the voice; with patient hearing and kindly obedience by saying, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” This young Samuel obediently does (in First Samuel 3:10), uttering these words: דבר כי שמע עבדך (in transliterated Hebrew, “dab-ber ki sho-me-a ab-de-ka” translated literally in English as “Speak, your servant is listening”). When this biblical story is elaborated and amplified as a cautionary tale, we recognize that it can be interpreted as a story of the universal invocation of the Holy Ghost that unceasingly and persistently seeks our attention, beckoning us, and all of humanity, to pay attention, to listen, and to obey, even as Samuel did. Like Samuel, most of us, if not all of us, must repetitively hear the voice of God, the voice of the Holy Spirit, and must even consult others, before we hear and obey. Despite these efforts of intercession, many of us offer a deaf ear to the calling of the numinous, and continue to wallow stubbornly in our ignorance and foolish pride, perhaps even relying on our own choices and self-centeredness of the ego as native wisdom; choices of the ego, rather than choices of the Holy Spirit that some refer to psychologically as the archetypal calling of the autonomous psyche towards the goal of human individuation. The Call of the Autonomous Psyche, The Call of Servanthood, or The Call to Discipleship, is defined throughout the Holy Bible. One of the most prominent places is located in the New Testament Gospel of Luke, chapter 14, where a disciple or pilgrim, is defined as someone who, having abandoned the material things of this world, has put on the full metaphorical armor of righteousness by surrendering to Christ, and is now vested with a new undivided heart that is wholly dedicated to loving and serving the Lord. more »