“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” - Helen Keller
Imagine if your hearing was taken from you in an accident. Suddenly, the world of speech, of music, of nature, of all sounds, vanishes. Consider how much you would come to rely on your eyesight for the clues to stay in touch with the world.
Now, think about how you would live if your sight was stolen as well? Now your world is both dark and silent.
Minus two of your most crucial senses, how would you navigate through your life? In a silent world, the resonance of sound and sight gone, how would you sustain speech?
At age two, Helen Keller lost both her sight and her hearing. Unable to hear words, she seemed to have lost her ability to speak. Coddled by her parents as an invalid, her restless energy went unchecked and undisciplined. Instead, she raged about the world until, one day, a powerful and trans-formative force entered her life in the form of a teacher named Anne Sullivan.
Without Ms. Sullivan's Loving caregiving, we would never know the massive range of gifts locked within the blind, deaf and mute Helen Keller. It was Sullivan who enabled the world to meet and be dazzled by Keller. Keller's potential was developed until she became one of the most inspirational people of the twentieth century.
In her blindness and deafness, Keller learned the wisdom she expressed to us in this way: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” Can we, who see and hear, understand this?
It took the partnership of Keller and Sullivan to find the energies living in both women. Indeed, Sullivan's firm guidance of Keller teaches us a crucial lesson about Love: We cannot truly serve others unless we have disciplined ourselves to develop and shape our different gifts. We need to have our own personal vision of how we can serve. As Helen Keller wrote:
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
Every caregiver's potential exists as a vast, fertile field that lives within. Most of this energy is untiled, un-nurtured, and undiscovered. Work enables our gifts to bloom with the beauty God intended.
Potential is listed as the third energy because without the energy provided by purpose and passion, there will be no desire to develop our potential or to sustain it. With purpose and passion comes a deep desire to know our gifts and how best to answer Love's call.
What are our gifts? What can we accomplish with them? With the focus the energy of purpose provides and the passion that will arise when our purpose is discovered, the gifts lying within our potential may begin to pour from us like a newly discovered fountain.
Awaken your childhood dreams - all the things you once believed you could do which may now be buried. If your purpose is true, these gifts will begin to re-emerge in your life.
Let go of all excuses. Now is the time for us to commit with all the passion of our being. Those in need are desperate for our help. With discipline and skill, Love will enable us to heal in ways we may never have thought possible - until now.
-Erie Chapman
[Photo - Library of Congress archives]
