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1. From traditional to non-traditional vocation Toward the end of high school and at the beginning of college, I thought I might have a “traditional” vocation – that is, a vocation to the priesthood or a religious order. Many people suggested this vocation to me, but in the end I never looked into it seriously because I feared that my disagreement with certain orthodox Catholic teachings would create a cognitive dissonance that would either leave me frustrated or cause me to repress my dissenting views and become a “company man.” I don’t think my vocation is to be a company man! Once I graduated college, I decided that the best environment in which to nurture my vocation would be through experiences in Christian volunteer programs: one to two year holistic programs in which participants work at a nonprofit, live in intentional community, receive a modest stipend, and do some kind of communal spiritual activities. I volunteered with three of these programs over a five-year period. Each was a very different experience. In the first, I lived in a five-person volunteer community and worked at a food shelf. In the second, I lived and worked at a Catholic Worker house and my life revolved around the community of people serving and being served by the house. In the third, I lived in Managua, Nicaragua, and worked as an English teacher and workshop facilitator at a community center with one another volunteer with whom I also lived. This five-year volunteer program journey just recently came to an end. It was a rich and diverse experience in terms of the communities I participated in, the work I did, and the friends I made. I certainly experienced some challenges along the way as well, but those don't take anything away from all things I gained. Unfortunately. it seems like I’m no closer to finding my vocation than I was before. I had hoped that at some point along this journey I would develop a special passion for the community I was a part of and the work I was doing and the community or the organization, recognizing this passion, would try to keep me around. Then I would be able to put down roots in that community and live out my vocation there.
But it hasn’t happened that way. Now, six months removed from my five-year volunteer program journey, I find myself back in the US working for yet another nonprofit and pondering my steps. I ask myself these questions: Is the job I’m working at one that could develop into a vocation? Are the place I’m living and the people I know here a community for me or have the potential to become one? Should I return to school and look for my vocation there? At present, I don’t know the answer to these questions. I believe I do have a vocation, but I’m still trying to discover what it is. I believe that in the Christian life it's better to be faithful than successful, which is what I tell myself when I get discouraged. My only fear is that the craving for success will overcome me and that I will settle for something that seems respectable in the eyes of others and give up my search for my vocation.
2. Finding God’s plan after many twists
I don't think I intentionally understood the term, "Vocation" and what it entailed until I was well into my 30's and had been teaching for more than a decade. I had always believed in God's plan for me but didn't always acquaint that with service to others. I remember wanting to be a teacher as a 15 year old helping out at my old primary (elementary) school in rural Victoria. I used to volunteer and take reading and maths' groups with the younger children. I do remember though that I didn't want to stay in my country town and live there the rest of my life. I did know that I wanted to be the first to finish high school in my family and attend college. I always felt the world was calling me beyond the orchards and country general store my family ran in town. McMahon's Corner Store, we cater for you! Being the first to finish high school in my family (1985) and then to move to Melbourne and graduate from college were in hindsight some pretty big moves. Getting that first teaching role and fitting into the local school community were always important to me. Giving back to the community was always a priority, and my teachers and coaches in high school were great influences on me for that. Being educated by the Marist brothers taught me to work both my physical and spiritual realms. Another huge factor in helping me decide what to do with my life was having my first knee (ACL) reconstruction at age 15. Prior to that I was heading down the path of being a pro footballer and cricketer but 5 total ACL reconstructions by the age of 21 cut down any chance I had of earning a living through sport, so I did the next best thing and did a physical education/theology major at college. My role now in Melbourne is directing coaching and PE at a wonderful primary school, just like I began 25 years ago. My calling in life and serving others though took many twists and turns and perhaps the greatest transformation was when my sister died at age 24, just 8 weeks after she was married. This single event influenced me more than anything before and since. I consciously decided (vocation language here) that I was not going to sit comfortably after such tragic events and that I wanted to live not only for myself but for my sister and others. At age 25 I moved to the rural area inland from tropical Australia and taught at a boarding school run by the sisters of Mercy. It was Mercy that I indeed and found, as the sisters helped heal my grief; and in the meantime they taught and modeled for me how to serve the marginalized and the illiterate. Four years were spent living and breathing the Mercy charism until a pretty American guest speaker at our school grabbed my attention. After my sister's death, I consciously decided to live life to the fullest, sometimes to my own detriment, but by the time I met the American my heart was slowly healing. God's plan took me to Samoa and then to Chicago where I would spend 15 years serving the church, the teens and the marginalized. God's plan had me use my physical and emotional gifts to help the youth become the best versions of themselves. As we know, when the love of Jesus is in your heart anything is possible and so for those 15 years in Chicago I coached, taught, ministered, and served for the Chicago archdiocese. Some of my best ministering happened in weights rooms, on sporting fields, and in classrooms. I worked for the Viatorian Community for a decade; coincidently the word “Viator” means pilgrim or traveler, which is exactly what I was. St. Viator high school in Arlington Heights helped shape my ministry plans and this is where I really understood what the term "Vocation" stood for. The three young children a couple of years back, my wife and I decided it was the right time to give Australia a chance for our family, as these days my greatest vocation is the kingdom of God within the walls of my own home. I still coach my kids' sporting teams, my school sporting teams and community sporting teams, but family comes first these days. God's work is now done through families, as I come to understand the importance of the family unit and how, if that breaks down, the children and society suffer immeasurably.
3. From academic work to religious mission I graduated from Dartmouth College in 1964. If anyone had asked me at that time if it seemed likely or possible that I would work extensively in and on Latin America, that I would write nine books, with six of them on religion, society, and politics, I would likely have told them to dream on. But I became fascinated with religion and how it works in society, and began research on Catholicism in Latin America when that topic was mostly the concern of historians or anthropologists, or perhaps some sociologists of religion. Most academics at that time were still under the influence of a simplified version of theories of secularization and modernization according to which religion would inevitably fade and disappear as science and progress advanced. My colleagues wanted to know why I would want to waste my time on an issue like that instead of, for example, politics and economics. But as things have turned out religion has, of course, not faded away, not in Latin America, and not in the United States either. What we see is not the disappearance of religion but something much more interesting and dynamic—the pluralization of religion and the flourishing of innovation with new forms of involvement by religious people and groups in society and politics. My professional life has been academic, as a professor of political science with particular interests in Latin America. Over more than forty years, I have taught and worked in five countries (Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Guatemala) and visited many others. It has been a privilege to work with colleagues and students in these countries and to have the opportunity to explore important and exciting topics like democracy and democratization, social movements, and religion, society, culture, and politics. I like to think that my work has had some impact on thinking about these issues. I know that my professional work on religion also ended up changing my personal take on religion and changing my personal life as well. I began my studies from a position that is common in the social sciences—neutral, skeptical, and careful to maintain “objectivity” and emotional distance. But my research brought me into contact with people who deeply impressed me. I was struck and moved by the way their faith led them to make and sustain commitments in ordinary life and in politics as well, often under the most difficult circumstances. With increased contact and growing knowledge I moved steadily over the years from skepticism to sympathy, from sympathy to empathy, and finally to belief. My need to belong gradually overcame my fears and inhibitions. There is an old saying that we come to teach and then we are taught, we come to study and then we learn. These apply perfectly to my experience with religion in Latin America. As noted, I had been raised (in academia) on theories of modernization and secularization, according to which religious faith, practice, and institutions would fade with the spread of science and enlightenment. This was seen as inevitable and desirable. These assumptions formed the context for my first efforts to study religion in the region, which date from 1970. Clothed in what I thought was the armor of objective neutrality and distance, I went looking for fading and “traditional” institutions that would be responding to outside pressures for change. But what I encountered had little or nothing to do with this stereotype. As it turned out, I had arrived at a very particular moment. These were the years of the emergence of Liberation Theology, and the growing impact of events like the Second Vatican Council and the Conference of Latin American bishops at Medellin that set in motion profound transformations of Catholicism, and of Latin American Catholicism in particular. These were also times of profound political conflict, conflict that also divided churches and called many to respond. What I encountered was fare from languishing and fading: this was a dynamic and heady situation, filled with active and thoughtful debate and a great deal of mobilization. What I found was of enormous intellectual interest but as I have said, it was also attractive and moving in deeply personal ways. On the intellectual plane, my understanding of religion evolved beyond a simple interest in politics to one that strives to grasp how changes within religion create new ways of engaging society and politics. The emphasis became less institutional, less concerned with reactions, and more focused on beliefs and behavior at the day to day level. The central point of my position is the need to accept religions as autonomous sources of ideas and actions. This seems simple but it goes against much social science which typically locates religion as epiphenomenal to what are supposed to be more basic factors—class, gender, power. I also stressed throughout the power of ideas, and in particular the way ideas are incorporated into the daily routine and practice of groups and individuals. In personal terms, I was deeply impressed by the people and the groups I met, and honored that they chose to share their beliefs and experiences, their hopes and fears, with me. I found myself stirred and attracted by the sense of community and solidarity, both in the here and now and across time and space, that undergird the religious community. I am fully aware of the imperfections of any real community, but this does not detract from the value of trying to live in a consistent way in accord with the teaching and example of someone like Jesus. I have certainly devoted a great deal of time and energy to this in my career and in my life. Does all this add up to a “mission”, to following a “vocation”? Following a vocation requires commitment over the long term, and commitment to science as a vocation requires a specific commitment to pursue the truth, to represent reality honestly, to respect evidence of many kinds, and to look for cause and connections. I honestly don’t know if I live up fully to Weber’s definition, although I hope so. Years ago I interviewed a peasant man named Fortunato; he had little formal education but was very eloquent and very much a believer. He responded to my question about saints, who they are and what our relation to them is all about, in a way that pushed us in the direction of mission: Daniel Levine, dhldylan@umich.edu
4. The vocation to teach, a contested vocation, and a home in the universe
This is a difficult language for me. Vocation and mission are received and then decided upon. Some one calls ("vocates") and someone "commissions." The Someone in religious terms is God and/or Christ. I sometimes am tempted to think that I had neither a vocation nor a mission. But in a looser sense I have had both: ordination to the priesthood and commission by a bishop. In other words my superiors in the church decided that I had a vocation and gave me a mission. I can't say looking back that my desire and response were unconditioned but I got them anyway. Did I subsequently have a "vocation" to teach? Yes, decidedly, but in the sense that when I started teaching on the college level in 1964 at the College of New Rochelle, I knew at once that it was a call, from the immediate satisfaction I felt and from my intense interest in and enjoyment of students. If that's an experienced vocation, then I have had one. The satisfaction and the interest never lessened. I retired from the classroom in 2012 when I had knee surgery. The vocation continues and the mission lasted 46 years. The vocation and mission to the priesthood lasted from 1953 to 1980, but the sense or strength of it was always internally contested. I "liked" a lot of things priests do, in some cases intensely, like saying Mass and preaching and hearing confessions and baptizing. Though practicing the priesthood was often an experience of Divinity it was also Hell, I found it an internally conflicted experience from the outset for three reasons: 1. I hated the clerical life and its cultural ambience (hierarchy and clericalism as a way of life). These three add up to an unhappy and unstable priest. Even if the rules were changed I wouldn't go back to the priesthood under any conditions. So the priesthood was neither an appropriated mission nor a fully formed vocation. However, while no one commissioned me to teach I always felt it a vocation, and I believe that the satisfaction and joy I felt in it is my reason for regarding it as a vocation. I suppose you could stretch things a bit by saying that the colleges and universities I have worked in "commissioned" me to teach, They and I thought of it as "filling a slot." But I felt it as a personal vocation. Finally, marriage and fatherhood, no matter my usual skepticism about it at the outset, have proved my primary vocation and something that has softened my life-long problems: namely, is there a home for me in the universe?, and is there a way for me to live with God in peace? Yes, there is. And it wasn't a bishop calling me and commissioning me, it was a woman. She became my home and she introduced me to the boys. All this makes only disjointed sense when you view it from the outside, as a set of upending decisions and directions. But cumulatively, viewed from the end zone (I'm close to it!) it makes a unified evolutionary sense. Please forgive me for introducing a Hegelian/Idealist insight here, but it's only in the end that the beginning and the middle make complete sense. I have not rejected my time in the priesthood, nor did my marriage and paternity displace in any way the vocation to teaching. I felt a terrible risk in leaving the priesthood (a relatively secure vocation and mission) and felt high anxiety (thank you, Mel Brooks!) that my life would then be off-track, but the transition to "ordinary" lay life, teaching outside the Church, and loving my wife and sons ("ordinary life" again) was seamless, one flowing into the other. Leaving the priesthood was an immense relief.
The one facet of my life that has remained, from beginning to end, is the sense and faith that GOD IS HERE WITH ME. This sense waxed and waned but it has never faded. I have often reproached God but have not rejected God. The inner herky-jerky of a human experience like mine doesn't slip beyond Providence.
5. Maintaining healthy boundaries There are instances when the word “No” must be incorporated into one’s vocational outlook. This means that there will be occasions in one’s ministerial life when more can be accomplished more gainfully simply by doing less. Consider my vocational journey as an example of the necessity of retaining healthy boundaries. I entered ministerial life as an older man about ten years ago. Then in my early forties, I began to take it upon myself to fill any empty ministerial role on the parish level. In quite a short time, I became a member of the Knights of Columbus, an Usher, Lector, Eucharistic Minister, and a Catechist. I also joined, and participated in, several worthwhile committees. It seemed as if there were a different function or meeting to attend every evening—and I really enjoyed it all, as I learned much about humanity in the process, until I ignored my own humanity. My health began to decline rapidly, and I almost died due to diabetic complications and hypertension. My A1C, or average blood sugar for the previous ninety days, was recorded at 17.4%, which means that nearly 20% of my blood had turned into crystallized sludge. In hindsight, I ran around like a ministerial chicken with its head chopped off, not so much out of egoistic tendencies (certainly this was a factor, no doubt), but out of utter gratitude. My wife had been hired for a major position at the parish, and I was grateful to the priest who kept us from living out of a cardboard box—I’m grateful still. I also saw my ministerial efforts as a way to give back to my community—unfortunately, not everyone appreciated my attempts, and I faced much scorn by ecclesial cowards who refused to come forward themselves.
In reflecting back upon this time in my life, I am filled with a sense of wonder. As I mentioned previously, I certainly learned much about the sinfulness of human nature; I also learned about my own pride, and how much I had to let go of over the past decade. My late Spiritual Director, the wonderful Anna M. Conley, taught me something about ministerial vocations which still echoes in my life many years later: “When you hear the word ‘No’ in terms of a ministerial vocation, you have to keep in mind that God might be saying ‘Yes’ to someone else, and the Lord knows that that person may just need that particular ‘Yes’ more than you do!” Today, I still am involved in ministries, although at a completely different parish. I am a Eucharistic Minister, Catechist, and a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society as a Spiritual Director. I do all things with the wisdom of the late Anna Conley in mind, and I can joyfully add that I now do so much more, by doing less. I have achieved a happy vocational balance by picking the few ministries which mean the most to me, ever mindful that God’s ultimate “Yes” is meant for everyone.
6. Passing on vocation in teaching
Entering my sixth decade of life or approaching my fourth decade as a sociologist employed in higher education I have of late been given to some serious reflection on that very topic. Early in my academic career, I was advised to select large, complicated data sets for my sociological research, primarily to demonstrate that I am competent in the technical aspects of our discipline. My analysis of data for my Master’s and my doctoral theses enabled me to do that. I have, however, come to realize that the answers to important sociological questions lie beyond that. If we are to secure deep, respectful understanding of Berger’s “things are not always what they seem” in contemporary social life, we need multi-method data collection, especially that which is grounded in the context of community and civil society.
This winter I found myself the recipient of my university’s John Ireland Presidential Award for Excellence as a Teacher/Scholar. The writings of Archbishop Ireland around civil society, especially the role of the Church and religion around education, immigration, labor, and race, inspire me. Along those lines, today my work focuses on that civil society context while spanning the boundaries between social research and social praxis. Meg Wilkes Karraker, mwkarraker@stthomas.edu
7. Vocations: prospective, retrospective, and inward
Vocation can be understood in at least three directions: prospectively, retrospectively, and inwardly. Retrospectively the feeling that one’s whole life makes sense is very pleasing. The only problem is that you have to wait until after retirement to find your retrospective vocation. As I get older, my vocation becomes clearer, but it is less and less worth talking about. Both the prospective and the retrospective visions are supposed to illuminate many years of one’s life. But there is another vision that goes by the hour, sometimes by the minute. “I stand knocking at the door; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I come in.” When the door knocks, we cannot wait until tomorrow to find out who it is, and if the door knocks at night, we cannot plead inconvenience. So, yes, everyone has a Christian vocation. Every vocation is different because vocations are made by the minute.
All three visions are important. Prospectively, every step leads to another step. Retrospectively, all steps line up, even if in a crooked way. Young people must be encouraged to have visions and dreams for their future. But we can only work with what we have, whether five talents or one; hence at the end of every season in one’s life (or every five to ten years) we must assess our vision retrospectively and make corrections. One’s vocation must constantly be analyzed and questioned both prospectively and retrospectively. And inwardly, in response to the voice calling at the door; this is the most difficult, and probably the most important part of one’s vocation.
8. The joyful vocation of retirement Retirement is a step through a doorway where the rooms are bigger and the "to do" list expands. When I retired from CTSA a few years back, who knew that it would bring bypass surgery, teaching retired folks (most fun I've had teaching), time to write, and time to be a listener over lunch for friends new and old? One's spiritual life becomes less structured but deeper. The living Christ IS present palpably in the breaking of the bread not only in Eucharist but in the breaking open of the bread of one's life and of others' lives. Prayer is more presence than procedures. Love is more precious because life has less time. But ironically with less time, one slows down. I used to say that sanctity has less to do with virtue and more to do with fatigue. I see this offhand comment coming true (at least the fatigue part!). Slowing down is not so much the cliche of smelling the roses but realizing and appreciating the variety of "roses" that are along our paths. Some are in full bloom, some are damaged, eaten away, or broken apart. And some of those "roses" are gay or divorced, or desperate – and sadly they cannot teach in the parochial schools of Cleveland. Sad, but real. Aging and retirement makes one more accepting of difference and divergence. As the hair grays, so do one's standards of judgment. One embraces one's limitations and those of others. And one has time to be with others. It is no accident that the scriptural stories of Jesus often are set at leisurely meals – picnics or fancy banquets – and in chance encounters with the “different." "Here, put those 153 fish on the fire and let's eat together." "I'm eating at your house tonight." "How is it that you, a Jew, speak to me?" says the Samaritan woman.
It was fun to be a child and a teenager. It was great to be a wife and mother, a college professor, and a coordinator for CTSA. I've finished a glass of tepid childhood morning milk, downed coke with pizza after a Little League game, and shared a late night drink or two with stimulating friends and colleagues. But retirement is the "good wine" time, saved for last but in abundance. A time to sip salvation's cup with its many flavors sweet and bitter. A time to re-member one's life and be grateful.
9. The meandering way I came to recognize vocation I was raised outside any religious tradition and grew up wild and uncultivated in the deserts and hills of Nevada, a world of wide open spaces, vast horizons, cattle ranches, gold mines, gambling casinos, and whorehouses. I wandered through them all, without moral compass. My spiritual journey began at the age of 21 following a hunting accident that laid me up for several months, and later to spend several months in solitude in the hills and deserts of Nevada and Utah. From this solitude came a rich influx of spiritual energy that transformed my life spiritually, mentally, and psychologically. The spirituality that emerged was not at first shaped by any religious tradition. At first, the “conversion” experience was joyful, even ecstatic, but I had no religious or symbol system in which to articulate my experiences, and no one with whom to share them. In time, solitude grew into loneliness and isolation; spiritual energy without outlet became destructive psychic energy turned inwards. This was exacerbated by a naturally extreme introversion that borders on the autistic, which creates wide spaces between myself and others. Eventually, it led to severe depression and insanity, from which I only gradually emerged through psychoanalysis. Years later, I found my way into the Catholic church, where I found an ongoing religious tradition in which to articulate my spiritual experiences. At the same time, I have remained on the margins of the church (never quite finding my place in its institutional and ritual forms), even while at home in the experiential core of its spiritual tradition—amongst the writers, past and present, who have gone through both the spiritual ecstasy and the dark night, yet persisted in their search for the holy. Now, in my 60s, I reflect on my life and spiritual journey in light of Erik Erickson’s idealized stages of psychological development, comparing and contrasting them with the progress I’ve made and failed to make. My life has been a continual searching, lacking first the tools to discern exactly where the journey was calling me, and later, lacking the circumstances and tools to get to where I am being called. I have wandered, sometimes aimlessly, sometimes in a clear direction, through the forests of contemplation, the dry deserts and dark nights, the country of marriage with its joys and trials, the republic of letters—through this bent and grieving world which, in spite of pain and sorrow, remains a house of radiant colors, suffused with spiritual luminescence, where one can find traces of the divine everywhere, if one only steps back, contemplatively, and beholds its glory (even if we never quite reach spiritual fulfillment) . And though I’ve never quite fit well into the Catholic tradition, it has steadied and anchored me; gives me a map with which to explore the territory.
This makes me wonder how many people, unformed or ill-formed in the faith, go through life having had rich spiritual experiences, but not knowing where to go with it, not finding Christian churches able to accommodate their anomalous journeys and help them find their mission in life. How churches and Christian colleges can reach them.
10. My multiple vocations
Vocation has been a central concern of mine since I was eighteen. A born-again experience in a fundamentalist Southern Baptist church at 17 inspired in me a fervor for Christ. While working in a restaurant one day, a close friend of mine, probably tired of listening to me, said, "Tony, you should become a preacher!" That moment began a sense that God was perhaps calling me to preach. After a year of struggle, during a church revival, I submitted and accepted the call to ministry and began preaching at 18. Intense studies, dialogue, and reflection during college eroded my fundamentalist theology, and by the time I was finished with college, I felt rather lost, albeit neither separated from God nor calling but in a broader sense. I stumbled into a United Church of Christ seminary because I wasn't sure what else to do with myself. There in a context of refreshing intellectual freedom I was able to reconstruct a theological worldview that satisfied my faith and commitment.I began pastoring but also started graduate studies because I felt I had an affinity for the academic life and that sociology was a most important angle on life for nudging our world towards greater justice if not also peace. From 1974 till 2009, I pastored churches and/or taught in colleges and universities--feeling always that both activities were my calling. (I did a few other things, too, in pursuit of romance and adventure. :-)Academic people wondered whether I was committed to academia, and church people wonder whether I was committed to the church. My own theological reassessment was that I was committed to life and to mission as a response to God's grace. My talents, interests, and opportunities were to be the guide for understanding God's call. (We Protestants are fond of recalling Martin Luther's teaching that all occupations are a calling.) —Now I teach and write in philosophy, religion, and sociology, and am more comfortable than ever with who I am and how I'm fulfilling vocation.Anton Jacobs, antonkjacobs@earthlink.net
11. My feminist vocation My own vocational path has been a wandering one. Thwarted of the desire to pursue theology (and priesthood) as a young woman, I followed my other love, history, until the convergence of historical knowledge and moral conviction made me persona non grata to academic misogynists. My monuments from that phase are the Women's Studies program at the University of South Carolina, and a book, recently reissued in a second edition. By that time the study of theology had opened up to Roman Catholic women. Renewed pursuit of that interest took me eventually to Germany, where I earned the first Th.D. in biblical studies ever bestowed by the Catholic faculty at Tübingen. Again my teaching career was abbreviated by my advocacy for women and GLBT people; this time, though, instead of "you should keep your mouth shut," I received support and affection from my colleagues and moved to the next phase as an academic editor in the theological field, without feeling shame and rejection. During phase two, I became acquainted with the Episcopal Church; during phase three, I was at last able to pursue and achieve the dream of priesthood, though by that time I was only a few years short of statutory retirement. Happily, it is something I can still do, as needed, in retirement. It has been in preaching, sacramental celebration, and teaching parish classes that I have found my deepest vocational satisfaction. I can echo what Bill Shea says about the clerical life; however, my experience has been that the incorporation of women in the Episcopal priesthood and episcopacy has wrought a significant change in that women, coming up through the ranks, have been sufficiently burned by clericalism that most of them just will not put up with it, and so it is fading. We don't have that celibacy problem, either.
Along the way there have been two marriages, divorce, widowhood, and three children who (as well as my two grandchildren) now light up my days and ease the loneliness of the vintage years. I have to look at them to confirm what the calendar says: that I'm 75. How did that happen?
12. A light in the darkness
Now in my 50s it is easy to see the hand of God in my life, directing my vocation(s) and mission(s) and it has given me a greater, easier trust in Him. Now, every so often I find a question that wells up in prayer, “Who am I, Lord?” It actually shocked me the first time it happened. Then, I realized over a few episodes, that there would be another unfolding of what the Lord’s plans might be for my life. Now I even recommend to others asking this question. The feeling I have when this happens reminds me of when my daughter as a small child would be fussy one day, and the next grow a shoe size. The sense that I am not who I think I am is now a source of happy anticipation for me. Whereas before I would fret about what I or the Lord wanted, now I generally spend time in happy anticipation. Whether it is time to be knocked off my horse (again), lifted by my hair to visit someone in a distant place, or just be led to the next small thing in the service of the coming of the kingdom, I look forward to His direction and the doors that will open.
One small example…I found myself between jobs and with a ruptured disc in my back a few months ago, thinking of the possibility of a forced retirement in another state. I hobbled with great pain... One day as I entered a swimming pool, the sun came out in a beautiful streak of light on the bottom of the pool beneath my feet, with stripes of rainbows rippling throughout. It gave me hope through months of rehab and job seeking... Last month, I started a new job and was elected to a position in my lay association, both of which I had accepted before being able to sit up for more than a few hours at a time. The Lord is indeed a light upon our path. |