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Call the Midwife–living passions and callings
What I found fascinating was the different roads the women discovered their ways into midwifery. Time and again words like “my calling” were uttered throughout episodes. Even when the “callings” changed, they were encouraged and discussed. The support system shown between the Sisters and their charges; the power of every woman’s common goal to serve and help their communities is beautifully overwhelming.
Spoiler alert: I talk plot point of the series through season four.
Three momentous “callings” helped to push characters along in unforseen ways. These characters were shown an amazing amount of encouragement, steadfastness, and lack of judgment considering the implications of time period, politics, and location of the series: Jenny, Chummy, and Cynthia.
Jenny, about whom the entire series exists by, from real life chronicles of a midwife, leaves the show deciding her second calling is hospice care. Not only has Jenny received one strong “raison d’être” in her lifetime, but from one piggybacks another.
Fascinating.
Chummy, not only is practically disowned by her posh mum for going into midwifery, she marries an officer of the law, completely beneath her social status and later travels with him to an impoverished nation to fulfill a lifelong dream.
Enthralling.
Cynthia, perpetually single, struggles with midwifery as not being completely fulfilling. Her spiritual life yens for something beyond her grasp, until she decides to join the sisterhood–the very women alongside she works with daily. This is a curious point, since here is an example where the work of midwifery in this instance is separate from the spiritual passions.
Hmmm.
What this all makes me reflect on heavily is on the journey of life, one can find passion fulfilled via many different avenues. It’s not just work, although that IS a typical route, but also, spiritually. In Cynthia’s situation, piety and religious faith was her calling. This begs the question…what other roads of passion…?