“Vocation is where our greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need.”
– Frederick Buechner
The word vocation has, unfortunately, become all too familiar. We use it synonymously to mean, “what we do for a living.” And while that might be true, it only tells part of the story. The word comes from the Latin meaning “call” or “summons.” Thus, our vocations are not just what we do but what we are summoned to do. Summoned by whom? That’s up to the listener.
As people of faith, we hold to the idea that this call comes from God and reflects God’s desire and will for our lives. It is one of our great responsibilities to prayerfully discern our call and then respond. Importantly, it’s good to remember that we are perhaps called to different things at different times over the course of our lives. What we are called to in later life may be quite different from the call we responded to (or didn’t respond to…) when we were much younger.
Like any call, the answer to our vocation question can be found by listening. We need to listen to ourselves and trust our hearts. We need to listen to those who know us best. And we need to listen to that still, small voice that whispers (and hardly ever shouts): “Follow me, I’ve got something for you to do.”
Ask yourself in silence: To what are you sensing a call? Has there been a call you ignored because it seemed inconvenient? Do you have a passion that meets a great need in the world?
Steve, you will recollect that Lily Lee and I have professed our passion for singing.
We have recently joined a Catholic musician (guitarist), with 3 others (non Catholics), one of whom is also a guitarist, and have started singing to stroke-victims at NASAM, the National Stroke Association of Malaysia, as a form of therapy to hasten their rehabilitation!
We have only done 3 sessions and will hope to continue at the pace of one session per fortnight. It is quite enjoyable to interact with these Strokees, and notice positive responses. But the nice thing is we get to ‘drive’ our passion!
God is good!
Keep it coming Steve!
Anthony.
Coincidently, I just wrote an email to a teacher friend who lamented that education has become a chore rather the joy it once was for him. I also being a teacher have always felt it to be my vocation but due to all the focus of testing sometimes lose sight of that feeling. I told my friend that I did not want to end my career in despair over things out of my control. I last week felt the calling to volunteer to lead a book club with students before school. Relating to your article today I felt the need to share my passion for the pure joy of reading. Our library clerk sadly does not have the time to share the love of reading. Her job is to check our books to students so they can take comprehension tests on them. So I feel I am reconnecting with the idea of teaching being my vocation. There is a need to share the passion for the pure joy of reading with a younger generation that at least at my school will not benefit from the library experience from yesteryear unless we think outside the box so to speak. I feel a calling that I will answer.
This is a perfect example of responding to the call to teacher, Kathee, and that it means so much more than just “becoming a teacher.” I sympathize with you on the state of education these days. “Teaching to the test” and worry about being judged as a teacher by those results leaves very little room, it seems, for infusing a love of learning. But God bless you for trying and thank you for all you have done.
Ah, the vocation of singing…love it. Remember that Augustine said that “he who sings prays twice.” So you’ll be way ahead!