I woke up this morning with this question on my mind: What am I responsible for?
Isn't that one of the bigger questions we each face in our lives? If we ask it at all.
I immediately started reading commentary on Genesis 4:9 ("Am I my brother's keeper?"), but decided to look elsewhere for a first answer. I'm certain of two things:
1. I'm responsible to do things that I say I will do.
2. If I bring life into the world, I'm responsible for cherishing it. [Explaining the meaning of "cherish" would take many more words.]
What are my responsibilities as a citizen of a nation-state? as a worker who is paid to do a job? as a member of a family? as a breather of air in the biosphere?
What are my responsibilities to myself as a lifeform?
One of the truths that I have learned is that there is nothing more tragic than a missed vocation. For me, my responsibility is not necessarily to succeed in anything, to accomplish something "great", but to respond to what I am called to do with whatever gifts I have that match it. It is responding to the call (of being this or that, doing this or that) that is important. Missing it, or knowing the call but for whatever reason not responding is the not fulfilling the responsibility and, in the end, tragic.
ReplyDeleteMy two cents.