Opus Day 40: Continue to unfold

[Barque]

"… you must remain open to the possibilities and resist the temptation to make a closure before your life has run out. This means always keeping your very identity open-ended, because a life work defines you. Spiritual writers sometimes say that all finite loves point to an infinite love, and so there is always a yearning for more. The same could be true of a life work. Any finite task or career points to another beyond it. Your sense of what you are meant to do with your life has to remain open-ended, no matter how much or how little you feel you have accomplished. You never know fully what you are called to do.
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Finding your life work is inseparable from maturing as a person and finding your place in society. To mature as a person you have to take considerable time sorting through, taking to heart, and resolving the mistakes and failures that have marked your emotions and jagged relationships, learning better how to engage the world effectively. You have to unleash your creativity in realistic ways, grounding your idealism and ambitions in real-world contexts. "

Today’s Work: Complete this sentence:
To explore my life work more fully, today I will ____________________________ .

Share your responses with Barque readers, by replying to this discussion.

[Dr. Robert Klass]

Yesterday afternoon I found myself thinking about what we have done on this forum over the past eight weeks. Somewhere in these writings, somebody, I think it was Barque, said that this was an experiment, and I considered what I had gotten out of the experiment. First of all, let me say that I feel I have gotten a great deal, and I'm very grateful to Thomas Moore and everybody else who has made this happen. When I first got involved, I can't say that I had any specific goals, other than hoping that it might stimulate my writing, and it definitely has done that. It has also had me examine parts of my life, including the way that I and other people deal with so-called positive and negative emotions.

I am also interested in what other people feel that they have taken away from this experiment. I've noticed that many of the people who are involved in this forum are writers, and I don't think that happens to be an accident. One of the many things I like about Thomas Moore is that he sees and is interested in the spiritual aspects of those simple, everyday parts of our lives that are so important to our beingness. From what I can tell, the people who have been attracted to his writings and to this board are good human beings who are sincerely interested in being even better people and who have a genuine interest in spiritual matters. Before the coming of the internet, most of us would have never known of the existance of the others, much less had a way to carry on discussions. It is truly an amazing time in which we live!

So, where do we go from here? I look forward to some kind of relationship with other people who have been attracted to this forum, although I can't say I know what it's going to look like. I plan to continue writing, and I suspect that many of the other writers who are involved with this endeavor will do that also. Above and beyond that, maybe there is something that some or all of us could do together; does anybody have any ideas?

I would say that the single most important thing that I feel I am taking away from this set of experiences is the re-affirmation of knowing it is extremely important to put love into the world. Quite obviously, this is not an original idea of mine, and there are lots of other people who know that this is true. Whatever our work happens to be and what we do with the rest of our lives are so much more meaningful when our intention is love. Here's hoping to here from many of you! Aloha, Bob

[Barque]

Thank you for taking the time to share your reactions to the Opus course, Bob. I've uploaded a short evaluation form that I hope everyone completes to help decide next steps for this forum and its focus. (Your own responses to the questions will be appreciated.) Thank you, too, for your thoughtful contributions as the course unfolded. All Barque members will receive an email notice about the questions, and I'd like to hear from those who read the daily passages without replying to the discussions.