Vocation

I've been wrestling a lot these days with the whole idea of "vocation." My church asked me to fill out a "SHAPE" evaluation, and one of the questions in it is something like this: "If you could do anything in the world without failing at it, what would it be?" I'm 41 years old, and that question has me stumped. Big time.

I work at a job that, in all honesty, I'm good at -- I perform well and in return I'm paid for that effort. But I'm not passionate about my work. I don't lie awake at night thinking of how I can do it better. When I'm on vacation, I for sure don't think, "Gee, I wonder what's going on in the lab?" To be truthful, if someone said, you can never test concrete again, I'd be like, "Okay. Cool." I've heard the comment that goes like this, when speaking of your career: "Find something to do that you would do for free, and make that your career." There are variations on that idea, but the bottom line is that, for me, concrete is not something that I can't wait to get up in the morning and do, and in no way would do it "just for the heck of it."

So, I came across this definition of "vocation" in one of my all-time favorite books, Wishful Thinking by Frederick Buechner. Here's to finding our cross-roads.

It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a man is called to by God.

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.

By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren't helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.