"Be careful what you wish for," the old adage goes, "because you just might get it." I’ve been wishing to be a parish minister for the last six years of my life, if you count just actively training for it in Divinity School, or 13 years or so if I think about when the seeds of the idea were first being planted. And now the time is really here. I cannot tell you how blessed I feel, but also how humbled. I count myself as blessed because I actually seem to have found my way into a career where my skills and passions match the job description, and I’m conscious of how rare that can be. I’m also humbled because the reality of the task at hand, rather than merely the dream, its challenges and risks and the expectations, are starting to settle in as real.
Professional ministerial work, I think more than any other kind of work is often spoken of as a "calling". Whatever initial impulse that leads someone to ministry is described as "receiving a call," and even the landing of a job is spoken of as "being called" by a congregation. What does it mean to be "called"? What is a "calling"?
My wife Rita has been incredibly supportive of me throughout my discernment process and my training and my job search and these past six months. But I’ve seen that it has also been kind of hard on her. In contrast to my path through graduate school, which was a reasonably direct and steady march toward a goal, Rita would tell you that her experience was more uncertain. The person she first went to study with at the University of Colorado resigned that year under very unpleasant circumstances. That came as a surprise to Rita. Suddenly she found herself on a different track. She trained for a research position, only to find when she graduated that she doesn’t love doing research. It's a lot like graduate school, it turns out. What she loved doing was learning about and teaching and sharing the insights and wisdom of psychology. She loved teaching: engaging with people face-to-face. And so, during the last year, when the pieces were falling into place for me, there was a lot of temptation, perhaps, to look with regret upon choices that were made that led her away from the things she’s discovered that she really loves to do. The story has a happy ending, Rita is teaching now at Sonoma State.
During the search process in particular it was hard for Rita to resist making comparisons between my career trajectory and hers. Sometimes that led to difficult feelings of regret and self-doubt. Now, I’m no stranger to that act of comparing myself to others: I constantly bring myself down with that same line of thinking. I don’t preach as well as so-and-so, what’s-her-name got a bigger church, that ambitious fella didn’t need to wait tables for a decade to make up his mind. There seems to be no end to the woe that comes to us from the ceaseless comparing ourselves to others. "If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be truly fulfilled," says the Tao de Ching. Ain’t it true.
I suspect those comparisons and self-judgments that Rita occasionally felt were compounded by the unique way that "calling" is spoken of when it comes to ministers; and by the special respect and authority that ministers are granted, even, I've found, among such a fiercely egalitarian, even occasionally anti-clerical, people as Unitarian Universalists sometimes are. I know that doesn’t apply to anyone here, but I’ve heard rumors.
I’ve heard more than a few sermons and speeches that extol ministers’ great virtue: the long hours, the selflessness, the sacrifices, and so on. But from my perspective, ministry is by no means the only vocation that requires such things. Far from it. One of the sermons I’ve heard, actually described the vocation of ministry as "thankless." The vocation of ministry is many things, but "thankless" is not one of them. Even a love and approval junkie such as myself, is sometimes embarrassed by how much praise and support you give me. (Not so embarrassed that I want it to stop, mind you). We ministers get our names on the websites, our big smiling face on the front page of the directory, our words reprinted and circulated. When the story of a church is told, I find, its epochs are nearly always divided into the tenures of its ministers. Thankless this career is not.
I’ve also attended a number of ordinations over the last couple of years. They are remarkable affairs. Outside of inauguration ceremonies for our highest public officials, few people in any career get this kind of utterly loving and affirming event to confirm their calling. If anything, you might hope for something like that at a retirement party, but an affirmation at the end of one’s career is a lot different from one at the beginning. I wish everyone could have an ordination; I wish Rita could have an ordination. I wish you could have one.
So from this position of tension with great affirmation, this sense of call that was arising in my life, and this doubt that was present in Rita’s, I found myself questioning: what is this business with call after all? What is the notion of a unique calling, particularly for folks like us: Universalist folk who believe that every person is equally worthy in the eyes of God and that everyone is a potential servant of goodness and love.
There are different ways to define calling, that's helpful. The most commonplace definition, if you will, is one’s usual occupation, your business, your trade. That’s your calling. Another definition is a strong desire to do something, usually something that is socially valuable. This is when we seek activity that brings forth our strongest talents, or leads to fulfillment, or the realization of our deepest intentions. And then, there is another key definition as well: A divine summons or invitation; also, the state of being divinely called. That is usually the meaning invoked when talking about a minister's calling.
The origin of that expression, of course, comes from the Bible. God is said to have called to Moses from the Burning Bush, and calls to Israel through the voices of the prophets to uphold their end of the deal he foisted on them. The notion of being set apart, of having a unique role, or of being led by some divine impulse is also very developed in Paul’s letters.
The suggestion of these definitions seems to be that the closer you move toward your true calling, the closer you move to the Divine: that it is a holy thing you are responding to. And yet I know that I'm a minister from dumb luck. If we'd never gone to West Shore Unitarian Universalist church that day, by happenstance, I certainly don't trust this movement to have ever put an ad in the newspaper to make me aware of it. Who knows where I'd be? Still selling wine? In an ideal world, though, people do do what they love. In so doing, they spread some good will and happiness to others. Most of the definitions of calling include a sense of service. Frederick Buechner described calling as, "the point at which our deepest gladness meets the world's deepest need." Where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.
But to me, the idea of having one true calling, one thing that you're supposed to be doing rests on a theological assumption that few Unitarian Universalists subscribe to: It depends on some kind of master plan, or a master planner. One of our core observations is that nature, with humanity a part of that, is marked by freedom. If you believe you have one particular activity for which you were made, you are giving a lot of power to the Great Big Thing. Where does the sense that the Universe deliberately designs for us a certain purpose come from? Do we really think the world works like that? Are we, as the prophet Jeremiah claimed, "Known in the womb before we were born," or hard wired for just one task? What about the fact that we grow and transform and change over time, as does the world around us? Are we free or not? What I'm concerned with is this ultimate meaning that is given to the idea of having a calling as though it were ordained from on high. And I'm particularly troubled by the way we collapse the idea of calling and career together. There are so many other places and ways to find and express your calling. If you don't do it in your job, that doesn't mean you've failed.
Having the concept of calling can be useful. It points us, to some degree, beyond just using money and fame and prestige as the measure of the value of our lives. And often, we do feel something steering us. We may be doing very well for ourselves, and still feel an inner voice calling us to another way, another path, a different joy. I think that the happiness or unhappiness that we feel when we are trying to navigate ourselves through the world is a very useful gauge. When I decided that I did not want, in fact, to be a wine salesman for the rest of my life, the final decision came as I imagined myself two years down the line: sitting at Divinity School writing a paper or sitting at the desk writing an invoice. And in one I felt happy and in the other I didn’t.
A good friend of mine spent some time after college trying to make movies. He produced a feature-length film that never found a distributor, although it was shown at a couple of film festivals. Finding that there is no money in making feature films that no one sees, he turned his eye toward making commercials with some limited success. I know him well enough to know that, as much as he was jazzed by this work, much of it was done in a deliberate effort not to be involved in the family business, which makes fasteners. The business had been started by his grandfather, and continues to be run by his father and uncle. Eventually, finding that the lucky breaks necessary for a professional film career simply weren't happening in Cleveland, Ohio, he began to do some work for his dad. Now he’s the Vice President of sales and marketing. He’s transforming and growing the company, and he says, much to his surprise and horror, that he really likes the work. He’s challenged by it, it brings him joy, and in a way it has healed his relationship with his father, which is no small matter. But I know that he would not call this work his "calling." He serves on the board of directors of the Cleveland Film Festival; that's a little closer to his calling and his love.
It does bring benefit to express yourself and your unique talents and gifts. And if I’m spending less time on the benefits today and a little more on a critique, it’s only because the argument that you CAN, SHOULD, and MUST live out your true calling is utterly and thoroughly represented in about a million career-advice books. Allow me to make fun of one.
I found a little guide book called, Finding Your True Calling: The Handbook for People Who Still Don't Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up, But Can't Wait to Find Out written by a woman named Marie Young. She identified herself as "dreamer in residence" at changingcourse.com. (The Internet is wonderful fodder for sermons). She wrote these words:
True calling. The reason you’re alive. Your personal mission in life. If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, take a couple of seconds to complete this quick quiz: Are you doing exactly the kind of work that makes you want to leap out of bed each morning excited to begin a new day?
Friends, I love my job, but it's usually the dog's need to pee that has me jumping out of bed. She goes on:
Does your work satisfy a need deep within to express yourself, your talents, your values, your unique and precious gifts? Does your work allow for a balanced life— one that leaves time for family and friends, for exercise or hobbies, for you? Are you doing what you love and loving what you do? If you answered "yes" to all these questions, congratulations! There’s a good chance that you have achieved what the Buddhists call "Right Livelihood."
All right, "dreamer-in-residence", hold on! First of all, Right Livelihood, one of the spokes of the eight-fold path of Buddhism, doesn’t say anything about doing exactly the kind of work that makes you leap out of bed each day. All it really says is, don't harm. You are to avoid trades in weapons, poison, meat, living beings, and intoxicants. Everything else is open.
Even worse, to me, this view of true calling and misstated view of Right Livelihood is ignorant, even disrespectful, of the actual working state of the vast majority of the world’s people. As long as we continue to think that there are people who are farther up some ladder of purpose or divine inspiration, we perpetuate false ideas about the value and contributions of the work of most people. Suddenly most working people become the supporting cast in some divine drama and they weren’t even invited to audition! The walls of time don’t demand only architects, they also need people to haul stone and stack it.
What about all the necessary jobs that are never called "spiritual callings"? What about the masons and housekeepers and day care providers and taco truck guys? What about the plumbers, the people who make buckets or who assemble shoes? What about the vast sea of subsistence farmers who make up the majority of the world’s poor? Fifty percent of the world’s population still lives in a rural setting. There your calling is often farming or death, and in the squalor of the world’s cities there are many, many, many people who would be content just to find a half-way decent paying job of any kind.
To even be able to ask, "Am I doing the work that’s perfectly right for me, that is allowing my inner self to blossom most fully, that will bring me the greatest personal happiness?"—to even be able to ask those questions must be recognized as an incredible luxury and privilege. Bertolt Brecht once said, "There is no philosophy on an empty stomach." I wonder what the response would be if we tried having a conversation about finding one’s "true calling" with the cleaning crew who will be here tomorrow night cleaning up after us.
Lew Richmond, a student of Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi and a Zen teacher in his own right, wrote a little book called Work as Spiritual Practice. In it, he explores the real Buddhist approach to dealing with a work life that may not be expressing our deepest intention, but it can nevertheless be turned toward the good. The American writer Logan Smith said "the test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves." What Richmond and his path presents is a way to transform our approach to drudgery—a component of even the most rewarding careers. If not turn it to love per se, at least to turn it into opportunity for awakening.
In this model, your calling is right here, in the present moment; it’s not a one-time, get-it-or-don’t, find-it-or-not proposition. Instead our calling is about mindfulness. It's about letting go of fear. It's about keeping a light grasp on things and keeping a sense of humor. It's about trying to see others, your customers, your clients, your coworkers, as sacred beings no matter how crabby or demanding they are. It's about cultivating good will in every context in which we find ourselves. It's about the deep gladness and the great need that we can find in every single moment. This is a calling that toll-takers, receptionists, computer programmers, locksmiths, waiters, even wine salesmen can pursue. In this model, it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. It’s rooted deeply in the present just as it is, a present that is utterly wide open to possibility. Here there is also a theological vision, but in this approach, God is not the deistic builder and ordainer of fate. She’s the infinite, ever-renewing potential of the present reality.
Speaking to that, another chapter of the Tao de Ching says:
The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done. If powerful men and women could center themselves in it, the whole world would be transformed by itself, in its natural rhythms. People would be content with their simple, every- day lives, in harmony and free of desire.
That sounds divine doesn’t it: Ruling ourselves, having nothing, yet having all? A calling that everyone, regardless of your job, is free to pursue. In this way our calling is about an approach to life and its situations as they arise right now and right now and right now. In this model you don’t have to be good, you don’t have to jump out of bed, you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be who you are now, with kindness and openness.
I don't want to put a lid on anyone's dreams. I'm not trying to slow you down. We should see work we love, explore our passions, follow our bliss. We should be free from care of public fame or private ear, as the psalm said. We should stop letting fear and doubt keep us back from following our dreams. And may we uncover and explore our unique talents and our deepest good intentions, and may we pursue them with fearless energy. We should persevere in our dreams, and trust in the happiness we discover. And, I pray, may we all find it.
But we also need to know that the place where your deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest needs is always right here, and you are free to realize that true calling again and again, starting right now. Just say "yes" to life and truth and love.