According to an old Hasidic tale, a young man asked the elderly, wise Rabbi Zusya, “How can I become like you?”  Zusya said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’  They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’  Then he said nothing more.*

I remembered this story as I watched an interview with Shanda Rhimes and Robin Roberts on Yahoo! News this week.  Early in her career, Rhimes wanted to be “the next Toni Morrison.”  One day she realized “that job is already taken.”  When she began writing in her own voice, she set herself free.  Rhimes is best known as the screenwriter, producer, and director of television’s Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder.In 2007, she was included in Time Magazine’s 100 People Who Shape the World.  Watch the interview.  

As for myself, I want to write like Anne Lamott and James Risen, climb the Sierra Mountains like John Muir, preach like Peter Gomes, and look like Crystal Ball, or at least have the energy and health I used to have.  However, as Shanda Rhimes reminds me, those jobs are already taken.

I am me, the Barbara Anderson of today.  The task now, as always, is to figure out who that is . . . and then live it.

In 2010, I wrote:  

Within us is a whole, beautiful, courageous, delightful person – a creation of  God.  From the time we are born, we have gifts and abilities to be discovered. Our challenge in life is to discover that wholeness and live it, not only for ourselves, but for God and the world.  Check out this post.

My calling was never to be Anne Lamott, James Risen, Peter Gomes, John Muir or Crystal Ball.  My goal is to be the best Barbara Anderson I can be.  That job is mine.

*See Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer.

*See Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer.