Charism

September 19, 2025

To find our calling is to find the intersection between our own deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger. -Frederick Bueckner

September is one of my favorite months, as it brings a sense of anticipation and new beginning. After an early cool front, the summer heat returned with a stubbornness typical for a Texas September. Now autumn waits at the doorstep with patience and confidence.

I’d like to embrace this metaphor for all of us feeling the blistering heat of 2025. The powers that be are relentless and desperate to hold their position on center stage. However, just to the side, the next season is waiting in the wings for this one to pass (and it will). Let’s remember what all holy texts tell us -

Only that which is done in love will last.

The question then becomes, how do we usher in a new season? It’s hard to be patient when so much damage is being done. I found some inspiration in the book Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. She acknowledges that we are in a critical time on our planet and there are thousands of things requiring our attention and action.

She says, “No one can do all things. Yet we can hold all things as we trim and change our lives and choose our particular forms of rooted, creative action—those that call uniquely to us. She adds that “in the communion of interconnection we do not individually possess all gifts, but partake of one another’s gifts as we offer our own, forging a graced and complete whole.” (L. Haupt, Rooted).

Haupt shares that “charism” is an enchanted word from the Western monastic tradition which refers to “a particular gift or power—almost a superpower, received in grace through inspiratus, the spirit-wind, and returned to the world as ‘favor freely given.’ ” She points out that we each have our own charism or calling –”the unique gift of our own life and creativity” which can be thought of “as the particular grace that is ours to give freely, with devotion, with service, with joy, though not without hardship.”

Here is where I pause and reflect on each of those words. It takes courage to be true to ourselves and the calling of Spirit, to share our gifts and use our voice. It won’t be without hardship. Yet, it seems imperative. Herein lies the remedy for our inner longing and the outer unraveling, or as Bueckner said, “the intersection between our own deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger.”

As we find ourselves in a time of global and political hot water, we wrestle with what to do. The world needs our own particular grace, our charism. This we can own, embrace, and deliver when nothing else makes sense. We have to believe in it and celebrate it as well, and release attachment to the outcome.

Nothing has prepared us for this planetary moment. There is no prewalked path to offer direction. Our individual charism cannot be prescribed, proscribed, or even thought up in our head. It can, however, be listened for—a rooted, ongoing, reciprocal conversation with the wild earth—a spiral of inward, receptive stillness, and outward, creative action (L. Haupt, Rooted).

Love is the breath and heartbeat within all creation – as much in the earth and sky as in our hands and feet. It is the one presence and power that connects all life and lasts forever, so when we listen and lead with love, we know we are on the right path. Along the way, stay curious and engaged. Ask questions to find the truth and a deeper understanding. Finally, be encouraged and give encouragement, as this builds courage.

All shall be well, in whatever tangled, unknowable, difficult, beautiful way that wellness unfolds. Our lives are irrevocably entwined with this unfurling. Though we can’t know exactly where we are going, or what will happen, still we journey together by choice and in grace, foot by foot, upon our troubled, beloved earth (Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Rooted).

Roots & Resilience,

ej

Elisa J. Juarez