Work the Veil 8
I KNOW I AM ANSWERING MY CALL WHEN I HAVE TREMENDOUS ENERGY, WHEN I AM IN FLOW, WHEN I HAVE THIS CHEESY GRIN MOST OF THE TIME AND WHEN THINGS JUST WORK. IF I CAN’T GET SOMETHING DONE, SOMEHOW IT JUST WASN’T NECESSARY.
Sandy Smith
Consultant and coach, Seattle
ACCEPTING MY LIMITATION AND WEAKNESSES WAS PART OF GETTING BETTER AT MY CALLING.
Donna Ryan
Program Coordinator, Kansas City Downtown Cathedral
WE HAVE COME A LONG WAY, have reached the last chapter, but I hope you still have questions. I know I do. The more I work with callings the more questions I have. Although we have covered substantial ground there is more to cover than any one book, or even many books, can handle. We are talking about life after all, not computer code.
As we conclude in this chapter, we return to some of the basics and to the questions that never go away completely:
- How can I tap the deeper currents that make life worth living for myself and others?
- How can I make my everyday life a more call-based experience?
- How can I keep my perspective on my calling, neither being dwarfed by its scale nor swept up in its grander dimensions?
To address these questions we will return to the mindset and soulset of the evocateurs, which we began to explore in chapter 5. And we will hear from people who were interviewed for this book, many of whom you have already heard from at least once. They have more important insights and gems to add.
130EVOCATEURS REVISITED
Answering your call every day takes an attitude and some practice.
The attitude is the one we discussed early on: you have to believe mightily that you have a life summons to evoke the latent potential in yourself and others. The practice of seeing latent possibilities and affirming them develops the mental habits by which all of us called to be evocateurs of everyday life can live.
Some decades ago, as I observed myself and others in teaching and coaching situations, I noticed the phenomenon of people mentally escaping their current reality and going to another realm. They would leave the here-and-now, the seminar room or the classroom we were in, and take an imaginary journey to the world described in a story the teacher was telling, or the world of the video they were watching, or the case we were exploring.
The mind has an innate capacity to shift from the world of its current surroundings to the world of the person who is speaking, to shift rapidly to world after world in rapid succession, all in the imagination. And I observed how this happened in all kinds of settings, not just the formal teaching environment. It is part of how we converse and communicate.
In our minds, there is a very thin veil between these worlds. A psychiatrist once told me that the distance between what people see and feel in the now is a “psychic millimeter” from what they can imagine. A thin veil indeed.
As I worked with teachers and students and leaders and teams, the best of them could traverse those psychic millimeters quickly and effectively, helping people sense what their possibilities were. When I first started giving seminars, lots of them, in my thirties, I would watch participants dive into their deepest imagination. I gave this capability of getting others to sense other realities a name: working the veil. Evocateurs work the veil regularly, not for escapism or to impress others, but to help people leave the constraints of this dimension, get out of normal mind to more creative mental space, in order to see where they might go next.
131Here are three practices to help you develop the evocateur’s gift. The ability to work the veil is a fundamental mental and emotional skill for living a long-term called life.
LOOK UNDERNEATH THE BEHAVIOR TO THE SPIRIT AND INTENTION
Look past the behavior that your physical eyes can see to the spirit that lies behind it. This develops your mental eyes, your ego-self double-focus vision—one focus on the real and one on the potential.
Don’t be literal. Accept nothing at face value. Always assume something deeper is going on.
The natural tendency to look past behavior is something we all have, but in most people it stays underdeveloped.
If a teenager starts to smoke, the parent sees the behavior and searches past it for motive and spirit; the adolescent has a raging desire to belong to her peer group and smoking is in.
If a husband gets crankier than normal, his wife, in her better moments, will assume the attacks are not personal. She’ll go underneath the behavior to see the fatigue or anxiety that is causing it.
Tommye Wealand, one of those interviewed for this book, said this in her response to my survey question on what it is like to have a calling. She describes this act of looking past the behavior as central to her purpose in work and life: “Because people are important to me, I will strive to look for their positive side and to look past what may just lie on the surface .… I will help others reach their goals” (italics hers).
This unnatural tendency to see more than meets the eye is what practiced evocateurs working from the self and not the ego expand into a natural act. They view the world constantly for its potential, not just its reality.
132ASSUME THE YEARNING
The promises of the enormous advertising machine in our consuming society, the hopes the politicians put out as their product, the invitations of religious leaders to live a better life—these don’t exist by accident. Yearning for more and better, for beautiful and lasting, for pain-free and pleasure, for peace and joy, for God and love—this yearning is universal and intense.
Some yearning is more like craving. When that is the case, the ego is in charge. Some yearning is self-based and heart-centered, and as such, is the stuff of our souls. Knowing which is which takes time, reflection, and maturity.
People who are responding to a call watch everyday behavior at work and in families and communities and they see the yearning that drives the behavior, the longing in the heart that only responding to calls can assuage.
Practice seeing what others yearn and search for in their need to get on with a life of meaning. They may be combining their soul journey with all kinds of ego-contaminated cravings, but you needn’t give up on them in their longing, whether it is hidden or exposed, pure or polluted.
Assume that everyone yearns. Scratch a person on the surface, even someone who is all crusted up in stale attitudes and ego entanglements, and you will find a soul beneath, one ready to grow, if only invited in a way that person can hear.
Let’s look at a few earlier examples. Coach Robey worked the veil when he saw a teachable moment, knew I was ready for some input, and declared me a shooter. To use a sublime example, Martin Luther King’s entire “I Have a Dream” speech was a masterpiece of working the veil as he painted the picture of what we could become with lasting racial harmony. He assumed the yearning all people of all colors have for lives of justice and peace.
Those answering a call among us assume the yearning. They give it direction. They find and work the veil because they stay in the calling zone.
133FRAME PEOPLE’S ACTIONS IN MEANING-STEEPED MOTIVES
From the beginning, I have asserted that this book is intended more for the person whose calling isn’t always obvious than for the superstars who have an obvious and visible calling. The work of callings often falls upon the less-than-obvious, looking-for-the-lost-envelope (that is, Kierkegaard’s envelope) crowd. The roles we assume in life aren’t always steeped in purpose. Roles are transformed into callings only when we make them so, often with an evocateur or two helping us attain the right mindset.
A full-time parent washing clothes, driving kids to events, and putting meals together can feel less than ennobled by the mundane chores. A business executive can get lost in the repetition of meeting customers and meeting budgets. A craftsman in a building or one more house not very much different than the last one can find the routine overwhelming the craft. The veil is indeed very thin between the uninspiring tyranny of routine and inspiring acts of routine work and duty by those called to see their significance.
The deeper calling in all human roles stems from combined acts of human will and surrender that make these mundane chores rich with meaning and intensely valuable.
The parent who’s answering his call sees the routine chores as a means to serve his children and shape their souls.
The business leader answers the call by living the company’s values: growing its profits by growing its people and adding to the quality of life of its customers.
Tradespeople do it by seeing their work as a personal expression of lasting value.
In living our calls, we line up with the deepest possibilities behind the veil of routine chores. We must never let go of the meaningful substrate lying beneath the surface of our daily activities. Rooted in the subscript of meaning and purpose, the evocateur in us shows up to do our calling work when others live only by the script.
134Those working in kairotic time declare hidden meanings and create their response to their common calls when others are caught in the literal and superficial. They evoke the potential of deeper hopes and meaning by acknowledging that the meaning is always there, but for the will of the doer of the task, of the person behind the role, of the self behind the ego.
By working the veil, the thin boundary between what is and what can be, the evocateur in each of us brings new options and hope to the world. We all work the veil whenever we imagine something that could be better. Evocateurs work the veil with skill, intention, and timing for the lasting positive development of us all.
A SANDWICH DREAM-WEAVER
Some years ago, while working as a customer service consultant for a large hospital, I became very well acquainted with many on the management staff. One of the senior vice presidents was particularly passionate about creating positive moments and experiences throughout the hospital for patients and their families, and he grew greatly concerned about how poor the food service was in the cafeteria. The problem with the food was that it was institutional and the problem with the service was that it was impersonal and almost nonexistent.
After having been away for a few weeks I returned for a meeting with the vice president. At the end of the meeting he announced: “Hey, let’s go to lunch in the cafeteria. You’ve got to see Arnold at work.”
As we walked the long, convoluted hallways on the way to the cafeteria, the VP told me that Arnold was a new cafeteria employee who had suggested a sandwich line at lunchtime and that he was making a big impact on the service.
So I got in line and waited my turn to see what Arnold was up to. When I got close enough I could hear the chatter with each customer and the fun that Arnold was having with everyone who craved a sandwich for lunch.
It was my turn.
135“Hello,” said a smiling Arnold. “What can I get for you today? Your first time here, correct?” Arnold had a standard opening but apparently remembered his customers.
“Yup, first time,” I said. “How about turkey on whole wheat?”
“Coming right up,” said Arnold. “And may I make a few recommendations on the condiments and trimmings?”
The organizational consultant had met a sandwich consultant.
“Uh, sure, uh, what do you think?”
“Well, there’s several ways we could go here,” sandwich expert Arnold continued, and while he cut and compressed and put on the condiments and all, he gave me several tips and told me how the next time, oil and some different cheese would create a whole new gustatory event for me.
Then came his signature moment.
Arnold had been to a Japanese steakhouse or something like it. Rather than the normal slice of the sandwich in two, he grabbed his kabuki knife, and cocking it back like a Frisbee on a sidearm throw, made an exaggerated slicing motion that cut my unique turkey creation into perfect halves on its little plate.
Arnold had quite the flair.
He handed me the sandwich and I remember thinking it was more like a lovewich. I wondered if I should somehow store it rather than eat it. I said thanks and Arnold’s good-bye smile to me was his greeting smile for the next customer.
Arnold had worked the veil. I felt engaged and charmed, humored and delighted. It was a great sandwich. It was an even better human encounter.
The vice president was right. Arnold indeed had made a difference. So much so that they promoted him to shift supervisor of the servers. I thought management had blown it and Peter-principled him to the wrong level. Arnold, however, had this gift of having all of him show up as a supervisor too.
He had inherited some rather uninspired shift workers as teammates—”dim bulbs,” as one of the managers referred to them—ones who mainly threw the food onto the shelves and did little else. Arnold tried to get them to meet the customers with a little charm and appropriate engagement, but he faced some indifference and initial resistance. When I walked through the cafeteria about a month later, however, I noticed that all the workers were more engaging and warm.
136I asked how Arnold had inspired the changes.
“Well, we aren’t sure of everything he has done,” said the VP, rather bursting with pride and enjoying the cafeteria that Arnold was transforming, “but we do know this. His people weren’t getting it so he put out cue cards with these different greetings at the food stations, hidden from the customer but visible to the server, and he apparently changes them often and then recognizes the servers who are the most friendly and creative.
“Whatever he is doing, he’s got it going.”
I returned for several months, during all of which time the servers had it going under Arnold’s leadership (although the sandwich line was not as much fun without him).
Who knows where Arnold is now, off to bigger and better things, I hope. But wherever he is, he is most likely working the veil for new possibilities.
A CHORUS OF CALLS
I was deeply touched by the people I interviewed for this book—evocateurs and provocateurs and those answering the calls of the marketplace and the family and the routine. They offered up their deepest, most honest thoughts about their lives, intentions, and hopes as they allowed themselves to be challenged about how the sense of their callings worked out in their lives. They had a sense of the veil being lifted and worked at points in their lives and had committed, to a person, to being on the deep side of the veil as often as possible.
None of them pretended to have many answers, but they all had a story of their own to tell. Most, not all, had been responding to calls for a long time, at least five years. Some sensed that they had come to calls too late in their lives, and wished that they had started earlier. All had attracted helpers and most had attracted hinderers, evocateurs and saboteurs.
There was no arrogance in any of their voices, but there was a strong sense of joy and there were bouts with doubts and a sense of incompleteness. Some were bashful about the word calling.
137Let’s end our journey by listening to them talk about calls in their lives.
Tommye Wealand talks about finding models:
A key for me was finding the kind of role model I felt comfortable accepting. For the early part of my career I did not know any “successful” people who balanced head and heart. As a heart leader I fought what one boss told me: “Tommye, if you want to be successful you have to get 10 percent tougher every year.” I abhorred that thought. In fact, my response to that was “I don’t want to be successful if that’s the price I have to pay.”
Patrick Kelly, CEO, phrased the inevitability of the call in his life: “I knew it was possible, knew I had the talent. It would be stupid not to use it.”
Sandy Smith, already identified as consultant and executive coach, is also the former COO of a large software concern. She talked about her slow discovery: “I’m sort of backing into the idea that I am living my calling. I’ve been intentional about how I live my life and choose my work but the idea I’m living my calling is recent.”
Jan Ballard, Californian devoted to transforming the accounting profession, talked about the help he received, and the service message he absorbed: “I did most of my call discovery on my own, but I had many mentors, and my Dad told me one Easter that I would experience satisfaction in life to the degree I was able to be of service to my fellow human beings.”
Dave Quammen, or Q, the writer and my old friend, also accepted help along the way, even the well-disguised kind:
Nobody ever hindered me. I had Irish luck all the way. Even the cruel brusque editors who rejected my bad and so-so work at the beginning, pointing me through years of dues and bartending, were doing me a great favor. I was extremely lucky to have friends, patrons, helpers, and partisans early on—just enough to get me marginally launched—and equally lucky that I didn’t have massive, Roman-candle early success… because that only scrambles a person’s brain and expectations, and makes it harder to tack into the world’s cool headwind ever after.
Steve Sheppard of Foldcraft talked about calls specific and broad that intertwine:
I believe everyone has a calling and that it is our individual responsibility to seek it out. That means introspection, self-criticism, objective self-evaluation, and having the courage to follow whatever that direction may be. The lucky ones may end up exactly where we are meant to be. But I think that there is a broader call that exists for us too. It is this: wherever we may find ourselves, we have a call to make a difference, to create a positive impact on others, to make the world (our little corner of it) somehow better.… No matter what one’s occupation or circumstances. Where the two “callings” meet, and feed each other, true inspiration and magic can occur.
If you are interested in what people you know have to say about their experience with calls, I have put the questions I used for my interviews in the appendix at the back of this book. Use them and make up your own. It is quite inspiring to get people who have Arnold’s sense of working the veil to tell you how they do it and how they think about their calls.
WELCOMING YOUR CALLS WITH BALANCE
Answering a series of calls over our lifetimes will sanctify our lives and exalt our existence. A life is to be lived, a job is to be worked, a role is to be fulfilled. But a calling is something to become worthy of, to make a commitment to, to go on an extended journey for. A calling is like the bugle sounding at a great coronation—the notes ring out above the crowd and draw our attention to the highest of intentions and human possibilities.
139It is for good reason that the last word is about two errors we can make when answering a call that we know is inherently uplifting. Let me re-remind you of two extremes:
We take the call too seriously and believe that we are above ordinary life and temptation.
We take the call too seriously and believe we are not worthy of such a lofty state of being.
The first mistake leads to the great sins of the ego that we see played out by those who set themselves above the rules. The calling they feel gets distorted into an ego-serving display of poor judgment, lack of empathy for others, and arrogance. “I have a calling, so I am somehow above the rules, which are for the little people anyway, don’t you know. Now where can my limousine take me next?”
But the second mistake is equally damaging. If we feel unworthy of the calling we may shirk our duty, let fear keep us from getting on with the work, and choose ordinary life over extraordinary purpose. We may talk ourselves into being pragmatic and realistic—”Now I’d better get back to the stuff of my job, and leave my illusions of making a difference to another lifetime”—rather than give it our best shot and seek a unique way to express our real voice.
The first error is one of inflation and self-promotion and the second of deflation and self-protection.
Answering your call takes a balance of humility and boldness, sincerity without somberness, direction mixed with doubt. It is an adventure of human intent and heavenly grace. Answering your call invites this grace into your life. In the words of Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, “While we cannot will ourselves to grace, we can by will open ourselves to its miraculous coming. We can prepare ourselves to be fertile ground. A welcoming place.”1
Listen intently for and welcome your calls. Answer them with all the might and love, wisdom and cleverness, heart and passion you can muster. Then lighten up, take a walk, plant your garden, work a crossword puzzle, and read the funnies. Act now, and know that the call will still be there in the morning.
Growing at Ease with the Hidden Depths
140Demand of yourself that you live on the other side of the veil to experience the essence of life. Practices like looking past behavior to intention, assuming the yearning even in those who have forgotten why they are here, framing your actions and those of others in meaningful terms—all help the humdrum aspects of life take on deeper significance.
Remember the words and experiences of others, the millions of others who are on their path and mustering up the ideas and spunk to get on with their calls.
Enjoy the magnificence of calls and what they bring to your life and the lives of others, while keeping the perspective that the magnificence is reserved for your higher self and its call and not your ego and its role-bound day-to-dayness. Our long lives allow for commonality sprinkled with heroism, routine laced with rarefied spirit.
EXERCISE: WORKING THE VEIL
- How can I work the veil in all my activities to find the deeper life at my doorstep?
- What conversations could I be having with those around me to provoke more meaning and intention? What questions need I ask? What listening could I be doing?
- What role am I in that has deeper dimensions if I call it forth and evoke what lies beneath? My job? My parenting? My neighboring?
- What mission statement in my company have I ignored? Could I read it as a legitimate statement of highest intent? Can’t I commit to my own mission statement for my work?
- How have I let my cynicism, laziness, or lack of imagination get in the way of seeing what is possible?