Series: Vocation
Series: Vocation
Reflections on a recent conversation about vocation and authenticity
My spiritual direction this month left me to ponder vocation. What it is, why it matters, and what might the path forward be toward better understanding my own vocation.
Before I share what my understanding of vocation is, here are a few favorite reflections on vocation from some of my favorite theologians and mystics:
Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Barbara Brown Taylor: “ The practice of living with purpose.”
Frederick Buechner: “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep hunger.”
Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes: “…the work that the divine calls us to do on behalf of others.”
Richard Rohr: “The process of finding a unique place in life, and growing into one’s ‘true self'. Vocation is a summons to what is divine, not to be confused with a security-based occupation.”
Jake Myers, on pastoral vocation: “a calling to a way of being with God in the world.”
Mine: A deep knowing of your unique giftedness and a sense of connection with the divine as you offer your gifts to the world.
When I was asked in the last session “what does vocation mean?” I quoted the Thurman and Buechner versions, because I committed those to memory in seminary. I was asked to offer my own version.
And my version started out as something like “where does my sense of who God created me to be intersect with what the dream of God for the world would ask of me?”
My sense of God’s dream for the world is: a world where people seek justice and act with justice, love mercy, and filter their actions through a lens of humility. Very Micah 6:8, I know.
I asked myself, “how do my gifts promote justice, mercy, humility, and dignity? How do my gifts help to create a world where everyone knows their belovedness?”
I think my writing does that, and I think my preaching does that. I know my presence at Eaton when people come to talk with me does that.
I struggled with trying to integrate all the parts of my work and personal life into any of these models, with a little more ease in some than others. The sticking point is piano. One focus of my last session was how much I’ve never let on about how devastating it was to quit my piano performance major, to not be able to make the cut and therefore not become a concert pianist, award-winning film score composer and high school choir teacher. Yes, all at the same time. A girl can dream, right?
Those dreams died, but were never fully interred. They knock, frequently on the top of the casket in which they were, too shallowly, buried. In reflection, I think that my gifting in music - singing, piano, and violin (a little bit), are divine reminders of my own belovedness: to unearth and cling to, to delight in and enjoy.
I purchased and printed some sheet music today, in service of leaning in to and nurturing belovedness in myself, so that I can share belovedness with the world around me. I have 3 pieces to work on: Prelude in D Major (Bach), Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, from Handel’s Solomon, and Maple Leaf Rag (Joplin).
I’m also in search of a studio that is open late or has weekend hours, so that I can begin lessons again, with access to recitals. I was a bit of a ham growing up… still am. Eliciting laughter is my favorite thing. Though I got nervous about recitals, I enjoyed being on stage with a piano, under the spotlight; or with two other women singing as part of a literary trio in high school.
I’m a born performer - through writing, or music, or activism. This is the way my giftedness both nurtures and invites belovedness.
And you, beloved? How are you loved in the world? How are you loving in the world around you?