My call to the ministry was neither dramatic nor spectacular. It came neither by some miraculous vision nor by some blinding light experience on the road of life. Moreover, it did not come as a sudden realization. Rather, it was a response to an inner urge that gradually came upon me. This urge expressed itself in a desire to serve God and humanity, and the feeling that my talent and my commitment could best be expressed through the ministry.
I've shared before about Focusing. Developed by the late Eugene Gendlin, it is a simple (but not simplistic, nor easy), embodied practice that guides one to deeper self-knowing through the felt sense of experience. It's ultimately about listening. Here are its six steps.
Feel like you’re too old to explore new vocations? You’re not. This profile of a man who goes back to college in his seventies after dropping out in 1959 is incredibly moving and immensely inspiring. The It’s Never Too Late series offers many stories of people who are discovering passions and possibilities later in life.
Everyone has a vocation. I mean, the most fundamental vocation is to become the person whom God created. And it's both the person you already are, and the person that God calls you to be. And I think we find that out through our desires. What moves us. What touches us, what are we drawn to? And part of that's career. But, only part of it. I mean, it's really who you are called to be… As we let go of the things that we're not called to be, and the parts of our lives that are keeping us back... This is God calling you, you know. This is a process. And it's ultimately liberating.
I’ve very much been enjoying the newsletter and courses of Marlee Grace. They have a creative, quirky teaching style that emphasizes devotion when exploring one’s offerings to the world. I’ve especially taken to their practice of list-making and how listing our devotions, desires, callings... can help us get clear on where to place our attention and energy. [Thank you to Jenna Wortham for the post leading me to them.]
Hillman: Yes, but calling can refer not only to ways of doing — meaning work — but also to ways of being. Take being a friend. Goethe said that his friend Eckermann was born for friendship. Aristotle made friendship one of the great virtues. In his book on ethics, three or four chapters are on friendship. In the past, friendship was a huge thing. But it's hard for us to think of friendship as a calling, because it's not a vocation.
London: Motherhood is another example that comes to mind. Mothers are still expected to have a vocation above and beyond being a mother.
Hillman: Right, it's not enough just to be a mother. It's not only the social pressure on mothers by certain kinds of feminism and other sources. There is also economic pressure on them. It's a terrible cruelty of predatory capitalism: both parents now have to work. A family has to have two incomes in order to buy the things that are desirable in our culture. So the degradation of motherhood — the sense that motherhood isn't itself a calling — also arises from economic pressure.
If you listen deeply, what calls you may differ greatly from what you expected, it may surprise you, maybe even scare you a bit. Enthusiasm comes from a Greek root that means to be possessed by a god – it is divine inspiration. Excitement can often be confused for fear…
Here are two writing prompts that I’ve used with clients (back when I was a coach) and still do periodically myself. Grab a pen and a journal, get comfortable (or uncomfortable?), and sit and reflect for a few minutes... Listen deeply before writing. Write without censoring yourself. You might be surprised what arises.
- If I did not have to worry about absolutely anything — money, resources, opinions (including my own), current commitments/restrictions/limitations — what would I do with my life? What are my deepest desires and longing?
- Make a schedule for your absolutely ideal daily schedule. At what time would you get up? What does your day look like from morning until night? Don’t worry about practicalities or current realities… What calls you hour by hour?
Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, suffer the pain.
Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen in time, sacrificed.
Rumi
