I love this couple of paragraphs by John O’Donohue from pp. 133-134 in his book, “Anam Cara” under the heading “The Soul Desires Expression”. “The human deeply desires expression. One of the most beautiful ways the soul is present is through thought. Thoughts are the forms of the soul’s inner swiftness. In a certain sense, there is nothing in the world as swift as a thought. It can fly anywhere and be with anyone. Our feelings too can move swiftly; yet even though they are precious to our own identity, thoughts and feelings still remain largely invisible. In order to feel real, we need to bring that inner invisible world to expression. Every life needs the possibility of expression. When we perform an action, the invisible within us finds a form and comes to expression. Therefore, our work should be the place where the soul can enjoy becoming visible and present. The rich unknown, reserved and precious within us, can emerge into visible form. Our nature longs deeply for the possibility of expression in what we call work.”

Dang that man could write. I know why he left this world so soon, God wanted to have him close by to hear his interpretations of the world.

I wish that I could fold up those words of Mr. O’Donohue’s and fly them up to God on the wings of a paper airplane. I really believe them, and most especially that “when we perform an action, the invisible within us finds a form and comes to expression”.

He goes on to brilliantly talk about the modern workplace environment and “presence as soul texture”. He says, “Presence is the soul texture of the person. When we speak of this presence in relation to a group of people, we refer to it as atmosphere or ethos. The ethos of a workplace is a very subtle group presence. It is difficult to describe or analyze an ethos; yet you immediately sense its power and effect.”

I understand the belief that we can be who we are no matter what we are doing for work. I understand that the “Lynn” who I really am can be that “Lynn” no matter where she is receiving a paycheck. And in today’s economic times for many of us, this can be a helpful belief for us to remember no matter who we work for and no matter where we go that, by golly, there we are! What I wonder about, though, is what if enough of us began a quiet revolution to find ways to do the kind of work that we truly enjoy and to get paid well enough for it that we can live on our wages. What if we did the research we needed to do to find out what kind of work environment, people, product, service, expression of our souls we could do and then we set out to find ways to make that happen for us without giving up?

What if we created a support network system for each other to keep going, to pick ourselves up when we stumble and keep going, to give each other a pat on the back, to listen when someone needs to be heard and to cheer when someone needs to be celebrated?

So what if we began our silent revolution as soon as we start our next work day (or night)? What if one of the tenants of our mission was to be as true an expression of our souls as possible even when the present is not all that we know it can be?

And if you are in a job/career that expresses your true soul, how can you go deeper? How can you be more of the true you?

In every interaction we have with another person, we leave a little postcard reminder of who we are so in my little postcards I want to decorate them as much as I can with my heart’s truest song.

What about you? How do you express yourself in your work?