I sure did refuse the call
Yup. I’m a Hero’s Journeyer Cliche.
I was hit upside the head by God and I turned and ran the other way.
If you’re tracking with me, the last I wrote about this aspect of my writing journey, my heroic writer’s journey, I thought I had met with the goddess along the Road of Trials. And maybe that’s true. But it feels more authentic to admit … I refused the call.
I went back into The Known and said, “Nah, that adventure is not for me.”
The audacity, right?
Truth be told (as it always should be), my life got a little nutso last year. Shortly after I had that epiphany, I got mad at something my church did. Something the men running my church did. THAT distanced me from God. (I still have not recovered from that, by the way, but that’s a different story.)
Then, a month later, I took a full time position in content. Which has been a wonderful adventure, but it had me put my personal writing on a shelf.
Before I knew it, a year had passed. A YEAR. I mean seriously, when I logged into Medium this morning and saw that I last published on February 15, 2022? I laughed. Of course I’d get the nudge an entire year later. The only reason it fits my story is because it’s a full year later.
Doesn’t that actually make perfect sense?
Uggghhhhhh. God and His angels are interesting, aren’t they?
“O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”
So lots of people write for God, I didn’t need to be another one, right? I mean, even Moses balked at what God was asking him to do. (Spoiler alert: things turned out okay for Moses.)
But what I need to remember, what I heard a year ago and is still relevant today: God is a part — if not THE part — of my Hero’s Journey.
My normal world is so comfortable.
So in the stages of the Hero’s Journey, a Hero refuses the call because of fears and insecurities. A Hero wants to stay where it is safe. A Hero is not willing to make changes.
In Friedemann Weiland’s The Journey of the Hero: Personal Growth, Deep Ecology and the Quest for the Grail, I discover that I’ve been on a Shadow Journey. I spiritual writer’s heroic journey gap year.
Why? Because the adventure I was called to felt to hard and I didn’t feel ready.
“It is a difficult task to follow one’s inner calling. As long as there is the possibility of avoiding it, a person might refuse to go. But even if he continued to live as if nothing had happened, it is as if his spiritual and emotional centre of gravity has already moved into a new world. A chain of signs and experiences keep reminding him, until one day the hero goes on his way. It is only then that a person comes in contact again with his own center.”
Now what, right? Well it feels simple to me now. I need to stand up straight, adjust my cap, look ahead and prepare to start anew. That’s what a true hero would do, right?
Done.
Onward I go.
