Jan: Television Corporate Executive or Spiritual Counselor?

It was one of those days where you wake up with a headache that never really goes away, you have a lot of things on your to do list, and you're pretty sure getting out of bed was your first mistake. Maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but it certainly had that feeling at the time. Between the end of one job and the start of the next, I found myself with about an hour to catch my breath. I fell face first into the couch, fumbled about for the television remote, and scanned channels until I stopped on an episode of The Office. The women of Dunder Mifflin were all in the conference room with Jan (though I'm not sure why since I joined the program already in progress), and Michael had taken the men down to the warehouse for some sort of wacky bonding experience. Jan asked each woman to say something they feel they are good at, and when it was Pam's turn, she said she was good at art and would like to get back into it. Jan mentioned a program that the company offered on graphic design based out of New York. There was a back and forth between Jan and Pam with the former pushing the program and the latter giving reasons/excuses why it wouldn't work. Jan was being unusually supportive and helpful, but Pam was very reluctant and unsure. Finally, Jan cut Pam off in mid-sentence and said,

"There's always a million reasons not to do something."

In some ways I hear that conversation happening between my head and my soul. I feel moved by a variety of different work, but all of it requires a risk - sometimes financial, sometimes emotional, sometimes my pride. So my soul screams out for me to step out in faith, but my head rattles off a list of reasons why it is too scary, too risky. Too often my passions are restrained by the fear of failure. Could there be a way to set aside my need to make everything fit into a nice logical box and just set free my ideas and creativity to see what happens? At some point everything we know as commonplace started as a radical new idea. How did they face the opposition? How did they have the courage to take the risk? To simply show up and see what happened?

From my own feelings and the thoughts of those close to me, it seems that taking that leap would be better done sooner than later. Either way I feel my courage and faith growing, and though my fears remain strong, they are losing their prominence in my heart. Maybe it is not, "How can I take such a risk?" But perhaps it is more, "How can I risk not knowing?"

Several years ago I captured this feeling as best I could in a song entitled "You of Little Faith." It is based on Matthew 14:22-33. Perhaps if the above made little sense, this will help. Peace be with you.

You of Little Faith by Michael Kuehn