Has anyone reading this ever had a problem with finding his or her vocation? To be clear, not all people even believe in a spiritually mandated, or at least preferred, vocation. Some years ago, I remember a dialogue from the film, "A River Runs Through It" where the character played by Brad Pitt, a young rebel with a penchant for booze, loose women and gambling, is asked by his preacher father, "what is your calling?" Pitt responds with a look of scornful incredulity, "what calling?" This was too much for the hardened cynic Pitt had become as a reporter and columnist in his local Montana publication. "Hey," he clearly telegraphs, "stuff happens. This is a messed up and dirty world, where the rich get richer and the rest of us get what's left."
Sometimes I am left to think that Pitt's character might have been right. When I think of the rag-pickers who live in and off the garbage dumps in Manila, or the thousands of poor women world-wide who live by prostitution - often by their family's demand - it seems a conceit of the better-off that we might think of vocations. The Hindus have solved that doubt with the idea of karma - that the positions into which we are born give us our vocations because of our actions in past lives. But in America, the West in general, and many other countries besides, this is not the case. Billions have a choice, and sometimes finding the right path is painful and confusing. If we believe in any sort of spiritual guidance whatsoever, we also believe that our jobs - just as our marriage or children and other important parts of our lives - should receive the benefit of divine guidance. The trick is, of course, in finding the voice of this spirit. What, many of us have asked, is God asking of us? What is our practical purpose here on earth?
For some, it has always been easy - not the work part of it, but the vocation. I have known kids who from elementary school on who knew exactly what they wanted, people who stuck with it and succeeded. A next-door neighbor, for instance, had wanted to be a locomotive engineer, something that seems a near impossibility, and yet even now, he is driving the line from Boston to Washington. The cynic might say that it was merely the obsession that paid off, but it amounts to the same thing - these people knew what they wanted from an early age and got it, not for the money or even for the prestige, but because they knew.
An enviable comfort, to be sure, but even when the "calling" comes, in youth or at a later age, it might be that it is not met with success. For instance, I, along with several of my friends, went into anthropology as a calling. I know I did, at least - it just came to me in my late teens, and after a decade of twists and turns, there I was at graduate school. But for me and most of these friends, the jobs simply were not there, and we have had to live with our disappointment and go on to other things. In such cases, was this a true calling? Can a calling, that is, end in failure?
I am working up to Thomas Merton's book, No Man is an Island, in which he spends an entire chapter on the subject of vocation. I was hoping for a clear-cut sign that the sage could give me - a way to hear clearly the voice of God - but (of course) it was not there. Instead, he spoke of the necessity to find the will of God through a certain attitude. This was not as fulfilling as, say, a Gypsy woman's clear forecast, but it was to the truth. God (or the divine), says Merton, rarely makes its will known in clear and unmistakable signs. Rather, we must ready ourselves for the actuality by shifting our desires away from ourselves to the desire of pleasing God. By this, Merton means that we should not choose what we do for our own fulfillment or wealth or prestige, but rather with the intention of following God's will. While this sounds circular, it is not, for the attitude that one must achieve is at the heart of finding the calling. Says Merton: be not obsessive about the work; become competent, of course, but unattached; take pleasure in the doing, but understand that in the doing of everything, we should have God's will in mind, for that is the only will that is perfect. If one fails to make money off of it, or is compelled to another vocation, then that is what one is supposed to do - and we should understand that the mistakes and the trials are part of the divine will. Again, this becomes clear as truth only through detachment from our careers in the name of something greater. Only when we are thus free of our own egoistic desires, then, will we be able to hear the calling. It will come, one way or another, and it will be correct, whether or not it brings positive results from a materialistic or social standpoint.
Frustrating in a way, yes, but I believe Merton is spot-on. Take away our own personal glory from the equation, and our situation and willingness to comply will give us a vocation - even if that vocation will have to be dropped in the future for another. Considering everything as a gift from God, and our choices as choices to please God, we cannot go wrong, for we cannot be disappointed. Its will having been done, we simply continue with Its (God's, or the Will of Heaven's) will. We are thus in fulfillment. Yes, this is not a Gypsy teller's neat formula, but one that cannot have any dark thorns hidden in it. In the end, if not in the beginning, our line of vocation will become clear to us - if we focus not on our own egoistic needs, but on the often secret or inscrutable designs of Providence.
Because, as Merton says, our ultimate joy and fulfillment does not come from the outside - what is that but a reflection of God? - but from the inside, where God, or the Spirit, resides. Allowing this will to 'become' would thus be the only way to find the vocation, whatever it is, that will fulfill us. Practically, that means, for me at least, continuing doing what I am doing until something else seems more essential (or perhaps necessary), while keeping the faith - which in itself is the beginning of fulfillment. FK
Sometimes I am left to think that Pitt's character might have been right. When I think of the rag-pickers who live in and off the garbage dumps in Manila, or the thousands of poor women world-wide who live by prostitution - often by their family's demand - it seems a conceit of the better-off that we might think of vocations. The Hindus have solved that doubt with the idea of karma - that the positions into which we are born give us our vocations because of our actions in past lives. But in America, the West in general, and many other countries besides, this is not the case. Billions have a choice, and sometimes finding the right path is painful and confusing. If we believe in any sort of spiritual guidance whatsoever, we also believe that our jobs - just as our marriage or children and other important parts of our lives - should receive the benefit of divine guidance. The trick is, of course, in finding the voice of this spirit. What, many of us have asked, is God asking of us? What is our practical purpose here on earth?
For some, it has always been easy - not the work part of it, but the vocation. I have known kids who from elementary school on who knew exactly what they wanted, people who stuck with it and succeeded. A next-door neighbor, for instance, had wanted to be a locomotive engineer, something that seems a near impossibility, and yet even now, he is driving the line from Boston to Washington. The cynic might say that it was merely the obsession that paid off, but it amounts to the same thing - these people knew what they wanted from an early age and got it, not for the money or even for the prestige, but because they knew.
An enviable comfort, to be sure, but even when the "calling" comes, in youth or at a later age, it might be that it is not met with success. For instance, I, along with several of my friends, went into anthropology as a calling. I know I did, at least - it just came to me in my late teens, and after a decade of twists and turns, there I was at graduate school. But for me and most of these friends, the jobs simply were not there, and we have had to live with our disappointment and go on to other things. In such cases, was this a true calling? Can a calling, that is, end in failure?
I am working up to Thomas Merton's book, No Man is an Island, in which he spends an entire chapter on the subject of vocation. I was hoping for a clear-cut sign that the sage could give me - a way to hear clearly the voice of God - but (of course) it was not there. Instead, he spoke of the necessity to find the will of God through a certain attitude. This was not as fulfilling as, say, a Gypsy woman's clear forecast, but it was to the truth. God (or the divine), says Merton, rarely makes its will known in clear and unmistakable signs. Rather, we must ready ourselves for the actuality by shifting our desires away from ourselves to the desire of pleasing God. By this, Merton means that we should not choose what we do for our own fulfillment or wealth or prestige, but rather with the intention of following God's will. While this sounds circular, it is not, for the attitude that one must achieve is at the heart of finding the calling. Says Merton: be not obsessive about the work; become competent, of course, but unattached; take pleasure in the doing, but understand that in the doing of everything, we should have God's will in mind, for that is the only will that is perfect. If one fails to make money off of it, or is compelled to another vocation, then that is what one is supposed to do - and we should understand that the mistakes and the trials are part of the divine will. Again, this becomes clear as truth only through detachment from our careers in the name of something greater. Only when we are thus free of our own egoistic desires, then, will we be able to hear the calling. It will come, one way or another, and it will be correct, whether or not it brings positive results from a materialistic or social standpoint.
Frustrating in a way, yes, but I believe Merton is spot-on. Take away our own personal glory from the equation, and our situation and willingness to comply will give us a vocation - even if that vocation will have to be dropped in the future for another. Considering everything as a gift from God, and our choices as choices to please God, we cannot go wrong, for we cannot be disappointed. Its will having been done, we simply continue with Its (God's, or the Will of Heaven's) will. We are thus in fulfillment. Yes, this is not a Gypsy teller's neat formula, but one that cannot have any dark thorns hidden in it. In the end, if not in the beginning, our line of vocation will become clear to us - if we focus not on our own egoistic needs, but on the often secret or inscrutable designs of Providence.
Because, as Merton says, our ultimate joy and fulfillment does not come from the outside - what is that but a reflection of God? - but from the inside, where God, or the Spirit, resides. Allowing this will to 'become' would thus be the only way to find the vocation, whatever it is, that will fulfill us. Practically, that means, for me at least, continuing doing what I am doing until something else seems more essential (or perhaps necessary), while keeping the faith - which in itself is the beginning of fulfillment. FK
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