The Sirens Are Calling

It is a perfectly gorgeous seventy-degree day as I stand in my kitchen on Waller Street in San Francisco. All the windows in the neighborhood are open, and you can hear people talking, watching television, eating, vacuuming, arguing and rearranging furniture.

In the midst of all these sounds, I am suddenly transfixed by a sound I have heard many times in this neighborhood in the last two years. It is the sound of someone singing. In the house next door to mine there is a voice studio. Several hours a day one can hear the sound of students vocalizing or professionals working on a complex aria or an accompanist banging away the piano part for a Schumann song. I am utterly still now, listening to the voice, realizing all over again that the sound of singing has always been a siren's call to me.

In high school I heard the sound of the senior choir and wept with delight and longing, knowing I wanted to be in that choir. As a young college student, I heard the sound of a great tenor or baritone singer and wept with delight and longing, knowing I wanted to sing like that, to be close to such sound, to be a part of it. Singing has always been that kind of call for me. Whenever I hear it, I am moved, charmed, delighted and reinvigorated.

I recently had occasion to be with a dear friend and to hear the account of his "sirens' call". Ken Avent, who mastered this website for a time, owned and operated his own software company for several years. Growing weary of writing code hour after hour, he sold that business, moved from New England to Tennessee and engaged in a search for work, identity and calling which took him on a walk-about that has lasted at least two or three years.

Several months ago, as he tells it, some missionaries came to his church and presented some of the gruesome, disturbing facts about orphanages and orphan children in Bulgaria. Ken's response was immediate and all consuming. He says, "I listened to that presentation and I said 'I can do something about this' ", and he did.

He is now the director of an organization that he has formed; a non-profit entity called Bulgarian Child. To date they have completely refurbished at least one orphanage and have provided significant help in terms of supplies and equipment for twelve orphanages throughout the country. One cannot be in conversation with Ken for more than five minutes without the talk somehow drifting around to the work in Bulgaria. I don't believe I have seen anyone more passionate about a calling than Ken right now.

In addition to the work in Bulgaria, Ken is also the CEO of an organization called Youth Choirs Incorporated, which sponsors youth choir festivals all around the United States. Music is another passion of his, and it was the music that initially drew us together.

You will probably see references to Bulgarian Child in the months ahead, for I intend to find ways of supporting this exciting work. If you want to know more about the organization, check out its website, www.bulgarianchild.org.

I wonder if you've ever had the experience of being called like that. My song "Andy's Escape" tells the story of someone who was called away from the corporate world, called to give his life to teaching, and ultimately did, in fact, give his life for his students and for the cause of learning.

Sometimes that sirens' call has been with you so long and is so much a part of your life that you almost don't recognize it as such. Here are some words from a recently composed song, "Start Something":

Moses was an old man, taking care of sheep,
Heard the call to lead the people
Out across the deep.
Samuel was a young boy, who stayed awake at night,
Heard the call to be a prophet
And stand up for the right.
Abraham and Sarah might well have stayed at home,
But heard the call to take the journey
Into the unknown.
Esther was a beauty, but a most reluctant queen,
Heard the call to save her people
From the slaughter scene.

Mary was a teenage girl when the angelgram came down,
Caught up in a swirling dream
That would turn religion round.
Simon and his brothers made their living by the sea,
Never thought they'd lead the church
Into its history.
Saul was killing Christians in right religion's name,
He went blind and saw the light,
And guess what he became!
Zacchaeus was a wealthy crook, climbed a tree one day,
Met his master, heard his call,
Gave half his wealth away.

Martin King knew very well the risks that he would take,
When he spoke his dreams for all the world
And marched for freedom's sake.
Theresa of Calcutta spread love across the sea,
And in that love the poorest poor
Could die with dignity.
My mother led no movement, had no famous words to say,
Just heard a call to raise her young
To give their lives away.
And sixteen-year-old Rachel drove her family up the wall
When she brought home troubled street kids
With no place to turn at all.

My daughter complains that she has no passion, no overwhelming sense of call for anything. I suspect that is because she doesn't realize the fact that for years she has been called as a helper, as a lover, as someone who cares about troubled people. Somehow that doesn't seem dramatic enough. I think it is. Perhaps one of the greatest gifts that life can ever give us is the recognition of who we are and to what we are called. It just might be that that recognition could deliver us from slavish devotion to someone else's expectation and free us to take delight in responding to the sound of our own sirens, whoever they might be.

KPM/September 2001