At some point we have to pick.

Some pick at three. I’m a golfer. Or at seventy-three. I’m a priest.
We pick a path. A life.

Too often, though, we let a life pick us.

'How will you help change the world?' Share on X

I always struggled with the question of what I want to be when I grow up. The Peter Pan in me always pushes that question into my persistent future: when I grow up. I’m not there yet!

Recently I noticed that there is interest in ditching that question all together. For what is not who. Who are we to be? But the question is still too open-ended.

When I was little, I would say “I want to be a Dad.” Because that was my desire. And because, even when I was 9 years old, I didn’t want my work to define my identity.

The better question, the one I wish had been asked of me is How will you help change the world?

That isn’t only about identity, but action. It is personal and reveals interests and convictions. But most importantly, it guides us, not to a point in time in our 20’s or 30’s when we’ve “made it” as the person of our dreams, but it is a lifelong pursuit toward something greater, something participatory, something that needs all of us to join in.

The Art of Work

“I was sure my dream was something new and interesting.”

In The Art of Work, Jeff Goins describes his own pursuits, of searching for what he is supposed to be doing, using the classic religious language of vocation and calling. But it is something deeply personal and confusing.

His own seeking mirrors my own. He names that sense of call we pick up somewhere; the kind with a character of order or destiny, as if our discovery of self is pre-ordained in some way. That just maybe

“At some point…it would walk up to me and say hello, greeting me with a smile, and we would start the rest of my life together.”

Of course we know that isn’t so. Our dreams rarely appear and direction rarely just occurs in isolation. We work to build those opportunities and that life we want, to which we feel called.

But we never name the other truth, either. That flying solo, the responsibility for discovering one’s calling, is our’s alone.

“When we see someone who has succeeded in spite of tremendous odds, we are tempted to proclaim this person a “self-made” man or woman. When we do this, though, we ignore an important fact, one that is essential to anyone’s success–they didn’t do it alone.”

We cannot make ourselves. None of us. That isn’t how things are, no matter what we tell one another.

“Born into this world with zero ability, we cannot talk, much less feed or clean ourselves, on our own. We need help.”

This is the ultimate example of dependence: that we all come through the veil this same way. That unlike other animals, who are received into the world with innate abilities to communicate and walk, our babies come seemingly half-cooked. They cannot feed themselves, hunt or gather, they can’t even hold their own heads up!

More important is that we all come this way. None of our neighbors or idols were born adults. None came with an instruction manual. We are literally all making it up as we go. And from day one we have people helping us. We have neighbors and friends and coworkers and church members and community people all trying to keep us safe, keep us healthy, keep us with power and roads. It doesn’t just take a village to raise a child, it takes a village for all of us to thrive.

This is why discernment is so hard: nobody has done it alone, but we are expected and expecting to do just that.

“In modern times, the responsibility for reaching your potential is often left up to the individual. This is more than a challenge; it’s a cruel taunt.”

How are we supposed to know what we don’t know so that we can know when we don’t know it?

Work/Life Imbalance

When Goins writes about calling, he is speaking to something that includes work. He isn’t speaking to the work itself. What do you want to do when you grow up is a way of naming a particular career one wants to pursue, but not the kind of life one wants to live.

This distinction is of particular importance in an era in which careers no longer exist.

We don’t do one thing for 40 years and then retire. Careers are dead. The job you imagine landing 15 years from elementary school may not exist by the time you get there. Identifying the pigeonhole into which we place ourselves is no longer our pursuit.

Naming the work and life, then pursuing that life makes more sense. Then when we fail, we actually know we’re headed in the right direction:

“Traditional advice says to have a plan, but as we have seen, plans don’t always work. When pursuing your life’s work, your calling can be hard to see. Sometimes it has to be revealed, and the way this often happens is through failure.”

Failure, is never the end of our pursuit, our seeking, our calling. It is something else: how we learn.

“The risk of not committing is greater than the cost of making the wrong choice. Because when you fail, you learn. But what happens when you don’t commit, when you choose to not act? Well, nothing.”

I don’t really want a balanced life. I want one I am proud of. One in which I can say this is how I made the world better.

How do I help transform the world?

Vocational Confusion

I’ve struggled to understand my own sense of calling. I always have. I still do. Perhaps this is because the calling itself keeps shifting, moving, evolving, becoming something. Perhaps it is helping me understand the complexity of that task of transforming the world really is.

A former mentor spoke to me of his vocational trajectory, bouncing around between churches and teaching seminary, which led to his becoming a seminary dean and eventually a bishop. And he shared with me that every move was hard. Every decision seemed to veer from the direction he thought he was supposed to go. But looking back now, he can see the through line. It all made sense.

My own patterns, though confusing in the moment, help me see a path, opportunities, a life of ministry and work that makes vocational sense, if not any practical sense.

And the church doesn’t always help. My church, the Episcopal Church, gives those of us called to the priesthood an additional challenge: that while other traditions have chosen between whether or not its leaders are priests or pastors, mine has chosen for us to be both.

I am constantly reevaluating my vocation in light of conflicting vocational priorities.

It often feels like playing outside in winter, throwing snowballs, bundled up. And you get an itch that just can’t be scratched through the gloves and the heavy coat. So you take off the wet glove, get under your coat and scratch away, feeling the relief, the cool air on your skin. It is a picture of comfort.

When you go to put the glove back on, however, it doesn’t want to. The wetness of the material and your hand conspire to leave it stuck below your thumb. Even when you get the glove on, it is uncomfortable, sticking in an odd way. It fits, it just doesn’t feel right. Too tight.

Our vocations can seem to be ill-fitting sometimes. They can be uncomfortable and confusing. Like a friend’s current struggle with two very different senses of call. To evangelism or to service? To safety for a season or to unease and an uncertain future? I really don’t know what to tell him, other than that they both make sense to me.

The Impractical Life

What I appreciate most about Goins’ description of vocation is that it isn’t a workbook. It isn’t a practical book. It also isn’t an inspirational book. It is a book of permission-giving. A book of optimistic support of a simple belief that GOD has given every one of us gifts and we are blessed in the opportunity to share them.

Goins names the struggles, confusions, hopes and the diligence that using these gifts require. He doesn’t pretend to have all the answers or that we will all live great lives. He doesn’t claim any of it will be easy. Much the opposite.

“The truth is some people do get lucky, and others have been born into special privilege, but what are those things to you? You are still called. A calling may be many things, but it is not fair.”

The eminently more practical Discerning Your Spiritual Gifts by Lloyd Edwards is the practical guide to discernment I use. But Goins isn’t after practical. He’s after the pursuit, the living of life that is full and resonant with the gifts and passions we possess and the joy of working and striving and becoming something more than we would be without it.

He argues for joy in work and in life. That these aren’t things to be put in balance, as conflicting or deferential pursuits, but that we have a life and a calling within that life. A calling that may require something out of us we aren’t prepared to give.

What I would love to see is a redefining of life. And while we’re at it, a redefining of work, vocation, ministry, church, and priesthood. I’m sure you have other words you’d like to add. Like parenthood, wife/husband, leader, job, money, etc.

I want us to find a new vision of life and claim it. Live it. A life less practical. Less predictable. Less structured by outcomes and goals. A life of pursuits and passions. A life of transformation.

If I have to be something when I grow up, I want to be a someone who makes that happen.

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.