Here I am, Lord. I will Hold
Your People in my Heart.
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An open and relational appreciation of those who make a fundamental life commitment to love: whose very actions sing "Here I am, Lord. I will hold your people in my heart." Choosing integrity over ambition, kindness over money, humility over fame, they are responding to the initial aim of God within their own hearts. They know and sing a deeper beauty: the Lord of Sea and Sky.

"Here I Am, Lord", also known as "I, the Lord of Sea and Sky" after its opening line, is a Christian hymn written by the American composer of Catholic liturgical music Dan Schutte in 1979 and published in 1981.[2] Its words are based on Isaiah 6:8 and 1 Samuel 3:4. It is published by OCP Publications. Schutte wrote the song at age 31 when he was studying theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. He was requested to compose, on short notice, a piece for the ordination Mass of a deacon, incorporating in the lyrics God's word, of Jesus as the light, and the bread and wine of the eucharist.

I Will Hold Your People in My Heart
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Operative Life Goals and
Genuine Divine Callings
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Open and relational (process) theologians often speak of the “subjective aim” of experience. A subjective aim is a felt possibility - a goal for thinking, feeling, or acting - in our conscious and unconscious minds. It guides us, pulls us, lures us, like an inner magnet.

Subjective aims are not just in human beings; they are in every living being. The inner desire to live with satisfaction relative to the situation at hand, felt by animals and living cells, is a subjective aim. Even quantum events in the depths of atoms have subjective aims. Purposive experience is everywhere in the universe.

In human life there are two kinds of subjective aims: (1) moment-to-moment subjective aims for satisfactory living and (2) enduring aims that cover longer periods of time. I will call the latter as operative life goals.

These operative goals have many sources: friends and family, social circumstances, and our own life circumstances. For example, if you are born very poor, an operative life goal can be to accrue wealth. If you are born in a dysfunctional family, an operative life goal can be for security. You do not just choose the aim; it chooses you.

Operative life goals are what motivate us, giving us a sense of identify. They are continuous but not permanent. They can last for weeks, decades or years, but also change with time. 

Most of us have several operative life goals at the same time. We may seek security and adventure, healthy relationships and solitude. These life goals may or may not cohere. We may have mixed motives. Most of us do.

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An operative life goal may or may not be good for us, or for others, or for the world. It may be grounded in valuable ideals such as “truth” and “goodness” and “love” and “beauty.” And it may also be grounded in lesser ideals such as blind ambition or a need to be known and recognized. There are many highly ambitious people in the world today for whom "feeling like I matter" is their functioning life goal. They are caught between integrity and ambition, and they choose ambition.

And where is God in this? Does even God have an operative life goal?

As a Christian I think that God's life goal is like that of a truly loving parent: it is to help bring about a healthy family of life on earth, despite our divisions and animosities. It is to nurture whole persons, whole communities, and a whole planet. God cannot do this all by herself or himself. God needs us. 

Process theologians speak of the calling of God as our initial aim. This aim or may not be resonant with the functioning subjective aim of our lives.  If we live for money, we are missing the mark of responding to God's aim in our lives,  The aim is, as it were, God's prayer within us that we become who we can best become, for the good of ourselves, other people, other animals, and the Earth.

This is not to say that divine callings are always about ethics. Divine callings be about goodness, yes, but also about truth or beauty. We may be beckoned by God to achieve a kind of excellence in, say, science or art. The aim of God in our lives is not toward goodness alone. It is toward wisdom, compassion, and creativity.

If you meet a person who is inwardly beckoned toward truth, toward understanding the world as it is and can be, she is meeting God through the beckoning of truth. She may be a philosopher or a scientist, a theologian or a poet. And if you meet someone who has given her life to a certain kind of beauty, ballet for example, she, too, is meeting God in this way. She may or man not “believe” in God. Still, she knows God through the presence of the life calling.
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Divine callings can be hard and demanding. They are not “fun.” Moreover, callings can take their tolls on others. Many a worldly “prophet” has sacrificed his or her children’s needs for affection and time, and for quality family life, in service to a calling to help “save the world.” Is fidelity to the high calling worth it? The families naturally and rightly ask: For whom?

The value of open and relational (process) philosophy and theology is not that it answers these questions in an easy way.  It offers no formula for clearly distinguishing initial aims and subjective aims, divine callings and goals by which people live. But it does do four things that are important. First, it invites self-awareness: that is, awareness of the potential difference between divine callings and functioning life goals. Second, it invites a recognition that there can be many different worthy life goals, rooted in divine beckoning, which are incompatible but nevertheless worthy. Third, it invites a recognition that the One in whose heart the universe unfolds is affected and enriched by different people, with different life callings, all of which can contribute to the well-being of life.  And fourth, it encourages us to recognize that however God is truly present in our lives, it is not through images of fame, fortune, and recognition, but through more loving ideals, especially humble, unnoticed love.

Let there be ballerinas, yes. And let there be quiet servants of the good, who do what they can do to help bring about a more loving world, without ever needing to be noticed. that is where we see subjective aims that are consonant with initial aims. Let there be people who say "Here I am, Lord. I will hold your people in my heart."

​- Jay McDaniel, 11/4/2022

​The Calling of a Ballerina

What does it take to become a prima ballerina? In this intimate film by director Michael Sugrue, we follow Olga Smirnova, a rising star at the prestigious Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. It’s a story about perseverance. The gruelling dedication and sacrifices a young ballerina makes to see her dreams come to fruition.

Capturing the St. Petersburg native over two days, you’re inside Smirnova’s world, consumed with rehearsals and little time to breathe. Running on all cylinders, you witness her unwavering work ethic - dancing from dusk until dawn - and the lonely existence she leads, as a result. But she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s living her dream.

Camera and edit: Michael Sugrue
Producer: Fyodor Mozgoyov / The Key Productions
Score: Patricio José Sanchez, Steve Nossiter
Sound recordist: Philipp Starenko
Sound design: Michael Sugrue, Philipp Starenko
Assistant camera: Dima Solovyov
B camera operator: Ivan Markarov
Gaffer: Ilya Maximov
Special thanks: Olga Smirnova, Marina Kondratieva, Katerina Novikova, Michail Yarush and the entire staff of the Bolshoi Theatre.