When I was young and being raised in a Baptist church there was often talk of so and so being called to the pulpit, that the Lord had called these mens hearts to become a preacher.
I was just rereading some chapters in Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls where it talks about all sorts of Kali worship in Bengal, India. In it she talks about it being a calling and how that calling doesn't happen terribly often with Westerners and so those who have been called are fairly well known in certain circles.
Because I have shunned my upbringing for so long I never associate any terms from that time period to things nowadays. So I had never thought that my heart had a calling to worship Maa. A calling was something that only Christians adhered to, while at the same time I'll often tell folks that you don't have a choice to choose Kali Ma as your Ishta Devata, she pulls you in. Which is exactly what a calling is!
So now for the first time ever I'm finding common ground within my current Shakta Tantrik worship of Kali and my past being raised in a Christian environment (and no, I was never baptised so have never technically been a Christian even though all my Indian friends assume that I am because I'm a Westerner and we all are...) and that is something the is very supported in the Maa worshipping circles, complete non-dualism. There is not to be any difference between one deity and another, and yourself or anything on the planet, or not on the planet. All is Maa and so all is to be treated as well as you would treat her.
This is nice to finally have had one of these aha moments, even if it is over some simple wording. Once something clicks, it clicks and its nice that it did so. I'm tired of hating things from my past, they are part of me and how I am who I am now.
It also has made me more excited for when I return to India and I'll finally be taking a trip around Bengal to see Kali Ma in Kolkata at the Kalighat temple, to see her at Dakshineswar where Ramakrishna lived and took care of her, back to see her at Kamakhya which is one of my favourite places in the world, I'd also like to tack on Varanasi and The Himalayas to the end of this trip if time allows because I"ll be heading back to live with my guru at a certain point, which I am also excited for.
I don't have many insights to write about or more to say here, I just had a small aha moment and wanted it recorded for posterity, so there it is! lol, I've been called to be a Minister of Maa!
