There is another call, the one that arrives the day when what once worked no...

There is another call, the one that arrives the day when what once worked no longer does. Sometimes people need a shock; sometimes a tocsin call. It is time for a wake-up call. A man is fired from a job; a child runs away from home; ulcers overtake the body. The ancients called this "soul loss." Today, the equivalent is the loss of meaning or purpose in our lives. There is a void where there should be what Gerard Manley Hopkins calls "juice and joy." The heart grows cold; life loses its vitality. Our accomplishments seem meaningless. As Tolstoy wrote in his Confessions, "Nothing ahead except ruins." We seem to be in the thick of the forest without a road. "What, then, must we do?" The long line of myths, legends, poetry, and stories throughout the world tell us that it is at that moment of darkness that the call comes. It arrives in various forms-an itch, a fever, an offer, a ringing, an inspiration, an idea, a voice, words in a book that seem to have been written just for us-or a knock. THE KNOCK The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away. I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling. -Robert Pirsig

www.QuoteSweet.com