Finally, there is the question of what is “it” for? What will our “it” accomplish? What story will it tell? How will it inspire future generations? How will it ultimately remind people that there is more to life? How will it work?
Of course the artisans of the world may not bother themselves with such questions. They may be so focused on their skills that such deliberations are a distraction. They are doers. Engineers, not necessarily producers.
But there are those who possess the ability to see a new reality before anyone else. Some have the skills needed to bring that vision to life themselves. Others require the help and collaboration of others. True visionaries find a way.
They turn their heavenly or invisible reality into a physical one. But do be sure it starts inside them. In this sense, they join the very song of creation, where the Poet perfectly draws one letter in front of the other in perfect, magical harmony.
But it may take everything to find “it.” It will be a fight. It will not come easy, or without great sacrifice. And there will never be the guarantee before it is completed. There will never be the certainty that we are really capable of producing “it.”
There are great hurdles within ourselves to overcome. There are hundreds of insecurities. Who are we? What makes us qualified? Do we really think we have what it takes? Finding “it” is only one of the first big obstacles.
And even when “it” begins to take shape it does so only vaguely. Though we are obsessed with finding it, understanding it, getting to it, we strangely aren’t even sure what “it” really is. But we will know “it” when we find “it.”
So we spend ourselves on its behalf. The inner vision drives us to great lengths. There is something absolutely beautiful out there. Get it! Find it! “It” will be worth it, for generations to come. Only believe, and soon you will start to see.
Know that it may cost everything. Only with great risk comes great reward. Spending ourselves for an “it” makes us completely vulnerable, stupid in the eyes of so many. Why make all this trouble for ourselves when we could take life easy?
Jesus could have stayed a carpenter. Gandhi could have stayed a lawyer. Moses could have stayed a shepherd. Sometimes “it” must draw us out of our comfortable surroundings into the chaotic world around us. Go!
Will we look back on Egypt like the Israelite’s did with fonder memories than were really there? Will we look on the comforts we gave up, resenting the scars of sacrifice, wondering what we were thinking? Could we fail? Could “it” fail?
No. Not if you define it according to its own inevitability. In other words, where did “it” come from? Where does “it” ever come from? Does it come from inside one? Yes. But also outside, from an eternal place that longs for incarnation in this world!