The best literature is a mirror that helps us to see ourselves with more clarity and compassion. When I read Becky Chambers’s A Psalm for the Wild Built a few years ago, I saw myself in the novel’s protagonist, Sibling Dex. Dex is a monk whose work includes driving a tea wagon around their world, sharing cups of tea with those in need of support. The book is about much more than this, but, when asked to distill the nature of their work to its simplest components, Sibling Dex says, “Listen to people, give tea. Uncomplicated as could be.” Sometimes, the work of bringing more beauty, joy, and peace to the world is less complicated than we might first believe. It might be as simple as sharing something like a cup of tea.
One of the questions people often bring to me is one of vocation: what am I supposed to do with my life? This question is completely appropriate for students navigating emerging adulthood with all the opportunity (and dread) that comes along with it. It may be of little comfort to hear that this question doesn’t go away when we graduate or take our first job (or second, or third). The question of vocation is one that will continue to surface across our entire lives. We are always searching for the answer to Mary Oliver’s searching question, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Frederick Buechner, American Presbyterian minister and theologian, shares what I believe to be the best definition of vocation I’ve yet to come across in his book Wishful Thinking. After sharing that vocation comes from the Latin word that means “call,” Buechner writes, “God calls you to the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
I discovered my deep gladness over a decade ago in a church organized to support homeless individuals in Atlanta, Georgia. Church of Common Ground was founded by a Lutheran pastor who thought downtown Atlanta churches should do more to support the growing population of unhoused people who often slept on their doorsteps even in freezing temperatures. When I began my yearlong internship with the church in seminary, they had a storefront location on the corner of Trinity and Peachtree streets along with regular programs including daily 12-Step meetings and Bible studies, a weekly foot clinic, meals, a mailroom, and a weekly church service that met outdoors 52 weeks a year, regardless of the weather. The church also sponsored a yearly Requiem Mass (funeral service) for those in the unhoused community who had died the previous year and often didn’t have family or friends to mourn them. This community taught me the power of small acts of kindness. I could not solve the myriad issues impacting this community: homelessness, unemployment, addiction, incarceration, chronic illness, and more. As much as I wanted to, I could not fix it. I could offer an open heart, a listening ear, a cold cup of water, and a sandwich. Those small acts of love were sacraments pointing to something greater. Like Sibling Dex, my work was all about listening and giving. “Uncomplicated as could be.”
During my internship, I discovered that the work of walking alongside people, armed only with the humble and unassuming tools of hospitality and humility, was work that sparked joy in me. I knew then and there that this is the work to which I wanted to give my life. In the years since, I have worked in hospitals, colleges and seminaries, parish churches, and statewide church offices. I’ve preached and counseled, baptized and buried, married and managed, and in each place I’ve sought simply to listen and give. This is my vocation and a beautiful life. You also have a vocation waiting to be discovered and a beautiful and wild life waiting to be experienced.
On the subject of vocation, Howard Thurman once wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Take a look at your life and pay attention to the experiences that call to your heart. Those sparks are clues along your path to discovering (and rediscovering) your vocation.
