Trust Your Vocation

We have crossed the threshold into the new year, saying farewell to 2021 while welcoming 2022 with anticipation. As I reflect on the past year and look ahead to a new year I am mindful that many unknowns exist. If I entertain all the unknowns and uncertainties, they can become too overwhelming to take in. Is my job secure? Will Mother Earth be okay? Is the pandemic going to continue to drive a wedge between me and many the people and things I love? I quickly become aware that what I am fearful of is largely the stuff of the world and is at a level over which I have little or no control.

As I pause to consider the uncertainties of the current state of our world, I conclude, like Viktor E. Frankl, to accept that “Everything can be taken from a [person] but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” (Man’s Search for Meaning).

What Frankl is speaking of here is vocation. Within my vocation I find strength, true purpose and peace. My vocation is my calling, and for me, it is a calling from my Creator. This vocation or calling is within me, spiritually-fed and nurtured, and protected from human or circumstantial influence. My vocation is not my job or career, it is much more a part of me than what I do to earn a paycheck. My vocation is the dream that was placed within me from the beginning and it is as much a part of me as my DNA. Vocation is not just something that I do, it is something that drives. It is mystical in its nature.

Edgewalkers, I encourage all of us to seriously consider the mystical nature of vocation. I have come to terms with the truth that my vocation does not simply come from my own ideas. My true vocation is Divine-breathed, placed intentionally into me. This mystical reality is necessarily defined by a sense of mystery. Richard Wagamese suggests that within Elder wisdom we receive the instruction that participation in the Great Mystery requires prayer and meditation while at the same time allowing the mystery to remain a mystery instead of trying logically explain it (Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations). I can draw near the mystery and participate in it even if I cannot explain it.

Theologian and mystic Henri J. Nouwen (1932-1996) once said,

You have to start trusting your unique vocation and allow it to grow deeper and stronger in you so it can blossom in your community… Look at Rembrandt and van Gogh. They trusted their vocations and did not allow anyone to lead them astray.… They followed their vocations from the moment they recognized them… Both left humanity with gifts that could heal the minds and hearts of many generations of people. Think of these two men and trust that you, too, have a unique vocation that is worth claiming and living out faithfully.

https://henrinouwen.org/meditation/trust-your-vocation/

Artists like Picasso, Rembrandt and Van Gogh spent time in their community of like-minded individuals in locations such as Place du Tertre in Paris, France. Art was their practice. Art was their vocation. But Van Gogh was only a painter for approximately ten years. He was also an art dealer, language teacher, lay preacher, bookseller and missionary. These were his occupations that paid the bills while he followed his vocational dream as an artist.

Likewise, the Apostle Paul of biblical times is credited with writing many books and letters found in the New Testament. Paul was an apostle by vocation. But by trade, he was a tentmaker. Tent making is how he paid the bills to support the passion he had for his vocation.

Vocations and careers often occur parallel with each other. They may even cross paths in practical ways. In my first career as a church youth leader, I followed my passion and calling to answer the vocational calling of becoming a spiritual minister, servant and helper to others. But along the way, my calling also necessitated a paycheck and over time the calling became a “must do” instead of a “wish to do.” My calling was overtaken by my career, and the distinction between vacation and career became muddied. Ministering to others was fun while it lasted, but I lost my passion.

Edgewalkers, I encourage you to identify and contemplate your vocation. What is your calling? What is that deep, innermost desire within you? Maybe it’s your long-forgotten desire to strike out on your own and start a business. Maybe it’s the desire to mentor or teach. Maybe it’s the desire to get off the grid and live in a cabin on the shores of a mountain lake and write books. Whatever your sense of desire, I have learned that someplace within those dark forgotten rooms of my mind is where my vocation still survives, waiting to be freed from the task-based society that occupies my mind.

Now I have a stronger sense of the difference between my vocation and job. As a career, I am a public servant. The job is something I can lose or have taken away from me.

But my vocation includes “writer”, “leadership practitioner” and “facilitator”. My vocation shows up as calm in the storm, teambuilder, helper and encourager. These are things that cannot be lost or taken away. Consider the difference between job/career and vocation this way:

These are just a few ideas to get us going in the direction of understanding the difference between vocations and jobs. But so what? What’s the big deal?

The big deal is that when the bottom falls out, when the rubber meets the road, when the proverbial manure hits the fan (you get the picture) it is within my calling and trusting in the wisdom of the one who called me that I will find my strength. My vocation becomes my fallback point.

In the same way that I need to pay attention to and live out of my core values, I must also pay attention to and live out of my vocation. I may not know the future, but I can trust in the intuitive vocational gifts I have been blessed with, and in my Creator who has blessed me with the gifts, skills, abilities and personality.

Edgewalkers, we are in the business of following our vocations. This is one of the qualities of an Edgewalker. Vocational practice drives what we do and how we do it, and comes from who we are as created beings. Let’s find our passions and our vocations, and let’s live them out together!

Donovan Mutschler, MA, MC

For more information on this or other topics of interest contact Donovan Mutschler at donovan@edgewalkers.ca.

Title Photo: Lara Dawn Photography