If a vocation is a convincing feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation, mainly with regard to worth and requiring great devotion, then what is my vocation? Most would also include calling, life work, mission, purpose and function in its definition. How do I relate that to my Christian faith? Should my beliefs inform my vocation or should my vocation shape my beliefs?
Almost all of my interactions with people on this subject seem to indicate that the very relationship between vocation and faith is the root of every discussion about life. Therefore, life must be about the connections between vocation and Christianity. But what is the function of these supposed connections?
Most of these people that I look up to and have talked many times with, have never really given a definitive answer as to what these connections might be. After years of contemplating the subject and searching for the truth, the closest thing to a definition ends up looping back on the question—everyone’s vocation is different, and you can find your vocation through education, knowing/doing what you like, and most importantly, prayer.
It reminds me of a quote Brett Lott included in his Letters and Life, “[T]ruth is not a good that I possess, it is such that in giving it I must still receive it; in discovering it I still have to search for it” – Cardinal de Lubac.
Dr. Joseph Clair, the director of the William Penn Honors Program at George Fox, has given some insights into vocation and life, second to that of the class curriculum, often applying it to what we are learning. Regularly we are given the assignment of trying to think what life would be like, either in the world of the book, or the world of the author.
Throughout this process I've often found that the author usually states, or references through characters, that humans were created to one thing: connection with the Divine. And, should one deviate from the path set before them, tragedy often plagues their lives.
Connecting with God is a task that takes more than just some foresight. It requires action. In his early college years, through the process of discovery, Dr. Clair likens his time in education to that of the dark night of the soul, where he learned he knows nothing. His journey with God has been an unrelenting, yet revealing one. Through the practice of intellectual inquiry, in the third stage of his life, Dr. Clair is at a point where he can now build upon the knowledge of what he already knows about God.
In my life, I see not three but four distinct periods: 1) unknowingness and obliviousness towards the creator; 2) reconciliation with God; 3) separation and confusion, tearing down what I thought I knew about God; and 4) building on the understanding of truth, wisdom and good.
Stages three and four are closely related—I’ve noticed that they often occur at the same time—I am currently in the third and fourth stages of my re-reconciliation with the divine truth and good of God. It’s brought about many existential crises in the process, but I’m starting to realize that’s the point.
I have been greatly influenced by my faith during those periods of crisis, and it shows itself most clearly in my writing. I learn through writing out my thoughts—I discover in the act of putting thoughts on paper. If I couldn’t write, all the information in my head would build up until I start falling out the back. Writing helps me cope with memory and see the clear markings of learning.
My faith is like the five paragraph essay. It works great when all I need to do is get a simple message across to my audience, but eventually I need to move out of that simplicity and utilize more sophisticated writing styles.
This change hurts.
Moving out of the basic and simplistic foundation for clear writing comes with a little bit of pain, much like the pain that is experienced in tearing down the foundations of what I think I know about God. English and Philosophy help me reconcile these growing pains—yes that’s it, growing pains—and enable me to combine the love I have for thinking and writing into a unified act of pure and unadulterated worship of the One who creates creativity and enlightenment within the beings of His own divine image.
Though in relation to vocation, it really doesn’t matter what I do. English and Philosophy seem to be synonymous with teaching in the business world, but I don’t feel, nor will I ever be, confined to that cell. I would love to teach, but I don’t see it as the only thing I want to do when I graduate. I plan on going to grad school, hopefully I have an idea of what I want to do.
It doesn’t matter though. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I AM my calling. I AM my purpose. My life is my calling. God’s will for my life every day is my calling.
Still, the fact remainsthat there is no definitive way for people to say that they have found their calling, but I know many people who love what they do. Whatever makes you want to get out of bed in the morning must be your calling, you must be living in it to want to act upon it.
That is why I have discovered my calling—not as something I have to attain, but something that I live. I love reading. I love writing. I love philosophical questions that make my brain hurt. I love talking with people about reading, writing and questions. And I love life.
I think that is why I have chosen the major that I am in and why I think my job doesn’t matter. Because what I am learning empowers me to do much more than just a job.
